It's hard not to wonder if injuries didn't derail David Wright's Hall path

David Wright’s name is on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year. No one expects him to make it to Cooperstown because of a career cut short by injury. Wright played his last season in 2016, when he was still just 33. That was before he came back for one more ceremonial game at Citi Field two years later, as a way of saying goodbye to Mets fans.

But there was a time for him, back when he was young and the Mets were still at old Shea Stadium -- when we all thought he was on his way to the Hall -- because he was one of the best young players the Mets have ever had.

• The top moments of David Wright's career

In so many ways, he was the Mets’ Don Mattingly, who had played on the other side of the infield from Wright in his Yankees prime, on the Yankees’ side of New York City. We were all sure that Mattingly was on his way to Cooperstown before his back gave out, the way Wright’s did with spinal stenosis, along with injuries to his neck and shoulder, too. Mattingly was 34 when he retired after the 1995 season.

But at least David Wright made it to the World Series that Mattingly never did with the Yankees, playing in the 2015 Fall Classic, though he had only played 38 regular-season games that year. But he managed to play all five games against the Royals, hit a World Series home run and knocked in four. By the time the Mets made it back to a Wild Card Game against the Giants the next year, Wright’s career was already over.

So it all happened fast with him, the way he could play the game when he was a kid, and then the decline later. Somehow, when he does make it to the Hall of Fame ballot, he does it a few weeks shy of his 41st birthday.

But when he was young, over there on the left side of the Mets' infield with José Reyes, he was something to see, and one of the biggest stars the Mets have ever had. Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry are famous might-have-beens with the Mets because of things that happened to them -- and they did it to themselves -- off the field. It happened to Wright because his body betrayed him, the way Mattingly’s had before him over at Yankee Stadium a decade-plus before Wright showed up in New York.

Wright was still an All-Star seven times. He came up in 2004 and hit 14 homers and had 40 RBIs in 69 games, batting .293. He hit over .300 for the next five years. His home run totals for the next four were 27, 26, 30 and 33. His 2009 season was injury-shortened, but then he came back in '10 with 29 homers, 103 RBIs and a .307 average. Even then you could see that he was not the same hitter he had been when he was a kid. With all that, they still called him Captain America because of the way he lit up the 2013 World Baseball Classic for Team USA before the Mets did make him team captain.

In so many ways he really was the same kind of shooting star Mattingly had been. Donnie’s first full season with the Yankees was 1984, when he mashed 23 homers, knocked in 110 and hit a dazzling .343 that won him the batting title from his teammate, Dave Winfield, on the last day of the season. The next year, he hit 35 homers, knocked in 145 and hit .324. The year after that, he hit .352. His last really fine regular season was 1989, when he hit 23 homers, knocked in 113 and batted .303. He would not make it to the postseason until 1995, that thrilling five-game ALDS against the Mariners. Then he retired, far too young. He still hasn’t made it to Cooperstown, either.

Omar Minaya came back to the Mets, with whom he has previously worked, as general manager in 2004, when Wright was a rookie. Here is what Minaya, with the Yankees now, said about the young Wright on Sunday:

“One of top 10 players in the game at the time, a rare combination of power, bat-to-ball skills and speed. I think he might have been a 30-homer and 30-stolen base guy. Plus, he was a terrific defender at third when he was healthy. He was a great teammate, could hit good pitching, could drive in runs late and in the moment. Plus, he did all that on the biggest stage in the game, which means New York. I loved him then, and I love him now.”

Mets fans loved him, too -- and they showed it when he came back for that curtain call in 2018. There have been other popular Mets since Tom Seaver. There has never been a more popular Met since Seaver than Wright. Next summer, the numbers of Gooden and Strawberry will be retired. After that, they will eventually get around to Wright’s No. 5.

It is because of the way he played the game, and what that game meant to the Mets, when he was young, when we really were sure he was on his way to the Hall of Fame, not just to the ballot.