Prince Of The City

The two teenage girls behind the visitors dugout at Shea Stadium are looking for Mr. Wright. The taller girl-the one in the red sweater vest, shiny black capris and a Bubblicious-colored necktie-looks as if she maxed out a thrift-shop gift card. Her shorter friend, who's sporting mismatched leggings and a jean jacket worn inside out, seems merely to have dressed herself in the dark. � The teens survey the playing field, where, an hour before the first pitch, New York Mets third baseman David Wright is taking infield practice. Mostly, they survey Wright. Their eyes-dreamy, worshipful-glow like cherries in a glass of buttermilk. � " David Wright, I love you!" screams the tall girl. Wright smiles, turns toward her, waves, turns back and snares a grounder. "I love you, David Wright!" screams the small girl. Wright smiles, turns toward her, nods, turns back and snares another grounder. " David Wright!" the girls scream in unison. "Will you marry us?" Wright turns a lively shade of vermillion and spears a line drive. � A few minutes later the Met of the Moment ruminates on the courting ritual that has become a running joke in the clubhouse. "When I first got to the majors in 2004, female fans held up signs asking me to marry them," Wright says, barely concealing his embarrassment. "Those girls today were what, 13, 14? I'm 23, but that's a little young even for me." � Roughly half the unwed women in Queens-and about a third of the unwed queens in Queens-want the budding superstar for a husband. Many of the borough's married women would be happy just to bear his children. "I don't know what it is about David," says utilityman Chris Woodward. "I mean, he's O.K. looking, but it's not like he's Brad Pitt."

What it is, is this: Beyond his clear-eyed, pugnacious handsomeness, Wright has a combination of talent, poise and personality that hasn't been seen in a homegrown Met since Tom Seaver's heyday in the 1970s. This is a guy who routinely arrives at the ballpark five hours early for extra BP, whose idea of fun is writing Mother's Day cards on the team bus, who phones his parents to apologize for on-field tantrums, who shows compassion toward a friend stricken with multiple sclerosis by launching a foundation to fight the disease. Mets vice president of media relations Jay Horwitz says that in his 26 years in Flushing, Wright is the only player to start his own charity as a Met. "David never looks for credit, and he never, ever seeks attention," says Triple A catcher Joe Hietpas, Wright's roomie on three farm teams. "Wherever he's played, he's been the most dedicated, the most motivated, the most enthusiastic."

This is also a guy who last year, in his first full big league season, anchored the middle of the Mets' lineup by hitting .306 with 27 home runs, 17 stolen bases and a team-high 102 RBIs. (The only player who beat him in all of those categories was the American League MVP, Alex Rodriguez.) "I wish I knew how to pitch that kid," says Atlanta Braves ace John Smoltz, against whom Wright is 7 for 21. "As hard as it is to fathom, he doesn't have a weakness."

This year Wright (.313 batting average, six homers, 28 RBIs and seven steals at week's end) has emerged as the linchpin of a club with the best record in the National League East (26-17). "Most prospects who succeed at this level tend to buy into the hype and lose perspective," says Mets pitcher Tom Glavine. "But David is unlike most prospects. He's got the maturity of a 10-year veteran. He gets it."

Picked 38th in the 2001 draft by the Mets, Wright seems to have been built to their fans' specifications. "If you were going to start from scratch and design the perfect New York ballplayer, David is the kid you'd come up with," says former third baseman Howard Johnson, now the hitting coach for the Norfolk Tides, the Mets' Triple A team. "New Yorkers feel cheated if you don't play hard, get dirty and spill some blood. That's what the shortstop on the Yankees does, and that's what David Wright does."

Wright is already the most popular New York ballplayer this side of Derek Jeter. Described by one besotted Mets chat-roomer as "pure Eros and moonbeams," he mingles with fans at the players' entrance before and after games as convivially as a social director in a retirement village. "The guy is almost too humble," says catcher Paul Lo Duca. "He's so accommodating that I sometimes tell him he needs to take a break."

On the backs of Shea's spectators, Wright's number 5 has quickly become the jersey of choice-outselling those of such established stars as Glavine, Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran. "He's extremely polite and generous with his time," says Dawn Caldora, a 40-year-old housewife who collects autographs while wearing a Wright jersey and, back home in Brooklyn, keeps a Wright bobblehead doll in a wall-unit shrine. Curiously, Wright is a bigger local hero than his Yankees counterpart at third, A-Rod, who despite his gaudy stats and MVP awards is more admired than embraced. " David Wright," says Caldora, "is one of us."

Wright embraces New York City the way Woody Allen did in the opening frames of Manhattan. When he coos about the parks, the people, the jagged skyline, you half expect to hear strains of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. "To me, New York is the greatest baseball stage in the world," he says. "The fans have a certain energy, a passion, a fire that I haven't seen anywhere else."

Mets COO Jeff Wilpon sees the city returning Wright's affection. "David's a clean-nosed kid with a chance to be a fixture in New York for a long time," Wilpon says, perhaps alluding to two Mets phenoms from the 1980s- Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry-who couldn't keep their noses clean. "David is so good, on and off the field, that he may well become the face of the franchise. Whether that happens will depend on his actions and clutch play."

Clutch play is something the Mets' faithful came to expect of Wright in 2005, when he hit .538 with the bases loaded, and he has continued his heroics this season-including a two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the ninth inning that lifted the Mets to a 7-6 win over the Yankees last Friday night in the opener of a three-game series, and a mammoth homer in Sunday night's 4-3 win. Before Wright's arrival, delivering in the clutch was hardly a trait associated with the hot corner at Shea, an outpost that's harbored more fugitives than Rikers Island. One hundred and thirty-one third basemen have served time in the club's 45-year history, including the immortal Sammy Drake, Rich Puig and Tucker Ashford. Don Zimmer was one of nine who played for the original Amazin's. After he broke an 0-for-34 slump with a couple of hits, manager Casey Stengel said, "We gotta trade him while he's hot." Within a few days Zimmer was swapped for Reds third baseman Cliff Cook, whose shortcomings included an inability to bend down for grounders.