David Huzzard: Appreciating the Wright stuff

There was a time when Nationals fans were far fewer and had to forget about being Nationals fans. Hoping for a win from some of the lowly clubs this franchise put on the field from 2007-2011 was like hoping for the Marlins to do something competent. With all apologizes to Ryan Zimmerman and his numerous walk-offs between the summer of Soriano and Stephen Strasburg's debut. The Nationals weren't much of a drawing card. Those of us that did venture out to RFK Stadium or Nationals Park in the early days did so because we were fans of baseball and the Nationals were the team baseball players showed up to beat.

The news of David Wright's spinal stenosis and the reports that his career may be at its end caused me to recall those early days when I watched baseball for the sake of baseball. What I remember most about Wright wasn't how feared a hitter he was, how he could do damage with whatever pitch was thrown to him, how if a pitch was inside he'd pull it and if it was away, he'd lash it into the opposite field. What I remember about Wright is that he always took what the game gave him and nothing exemplifies that than how the Mets seemed to start every game against the Nationals from 2006-2011.

Jose Reyes, in his own right, was a great player when he was on the Mets and did plenty of damage against the Nationals, but the combination of Reyes and Wright was almost a guaranteed run in the top of the first, or at least that's how I recall it. Reyes would reach base either by a hit or a walk and steal second if he weren't already there. The Mets' No. 2 hitter would bunt him to third and Wright would either poke a single the opposite way or hit a deep sac fly.

The term "professional hitter" has almost become a pejorative in modern baseball vernacular for a hitter that hits for a high average despite not having any power. That doesn't describe Wright, who has hit 231 home runs in his 12-year career, but I would call Wright a professional hitter. Watching him hit was one of the reasons I went to the park when the Nationals weren't good. As I said before, if the pitcher tried to work away from Wright, he would hit the ball the opposite way, if they came in he'd pull it (often times over the fence) and if the pitcher wouldn't give him anything, then he'd take his base. Wright had the three important tools to be a great hitter: plate coverage, plate discipline and bat speed. Wright was the textbook example of a gap-to-gap line drive hitter, and it's a shame his baseball career could be at an end.

Back in the days before the Nationals had drawing cards like Bryce Harper or Max Scherzer, baseball fans went for the sake of baseball, because we wanted to watch baseball players excel at their craft; the outcome of the game was secondary. Wright was a visiting player who was a pleasure to watch, and he isn't the only one. As tough as it is to admit it, Chase Utley is the best second baseman of his generation and played baseball in a way that made you both hate his guts and wish your team had a player just like him. Giancarlo Stanton is a more recent addition to Major League Baseball, but no baseball fan will tell you they aren't filled with a sense of wonder when Stanton crushes a ball and it leaves the yard in fractions of a second.

Above them all, I enjoyed watching Wright because Wright was rare. He was a pure hitter and he played the game like he was born in the batter's box. He belonged at the plate, staring down the pitcher and waiting for a pitch to be delivered, and when that pitch was on its way to him, he was going to decode all its secrets and hit it to whichever field was best to achieve his desired results.

David Huzzard blogs about the Nationals at Citizens of Natstown. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidHuzzard. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our regular roster of writers.