It was the names that struck David Wright the most.
The longtime New York Mets star and Hampton Roads native perused the list of his fellow inductees into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday and marveled that he was among them.
“It’s a who’s who, for sure,” Wright said. “Growing up, I knew of the names coming out of this area. But having been from here and kind of being a little older now and maybe a little more knowledgeable, the athletes coming from this area — there must be something in the water, because it’s a who’s who in sports.”
Wright, who hit .296 in 1,585 games over 14 major league seasons, was one of 11 inductees honored at a sold-out ceremony in a bustling Town Center hotel ballroom.
Joining Wright in the stellar class were pioneering Old Dominion basketball coach Sonny Allen; football players Chris Warren, Anthony Poindexter and Al Toon; canoe slalom racer Jon Lugbill; Norfolk State women’s basketball star Tracy Saunders; longtime TV sports anchors Bruce Rader and Dennis Carter; Olympic pole vaulter Lawrence Johnson and baseball lifer Mike Cubbage.
Warren, Poindexter, Lugbill and Allen technically made up the 2022 class. The rest were to be named to the hall in 2020, but no ceremony was held for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The delay meant Cubbage, who played parts of eight big league seasons and managed the Tidewater Tides before a long career as a major league coach, manager and scout, had to sit on the news since learning of his election in October 2019.
Cubbage, a 71-year-old Charlottesville native, retired as a special assistant to the Washington Nationals after the 2020 season with an oversized 2019 World Series ring to show for it. He’d looked forward to Saturday for some time.
“I’m glad it finally got here in my lifetime,” Cubbage said. “The last two years have been really strange. I know some people that were planning on coming could no longer make it.”
Rader, who retired from WAVY-TV in February after 45 years at the station, had emceed the Hall of Fame event for 30 years. But organizers told him he was not allowed to induct himself.
“So I’ve inducted some of the greatest athletes in the history of Virginia to come in there,” Rader said. “And I’ll be honest with you: I never thought that the time would come where I would be voted in and inducted in the Hall of Fame. I’m not David Wright. I’m not Curtis Strange. I’m not Bruce Smith. I’m not that guy. But I’ve known most of these guys since they were kids.”
That includes Wright, who posed for photos at every turn and signed countless autographs before the ceremony for many of the 450 assembled.
The longtime Mets captain, once named the “Face of MLB” in fan voting, retired in 2018 after persistent back problems derailed his career. Now 39, the former star at Chesapeake’s Hickory High lives on the West Coast and “sort of, kind of” does advisory work for the Mets, he said.
He attended spring training and worked with third-base prospect Brett Baty while wearing a New York uniform.
“It still fit,” Wright said. “So I put the costume on for a few days and was on the field. It felt good to be back out there.”
Cubbage, who finished his big league playing career with the Mets in 1981, deferred to Wright as a player.
“We were both Met third basemen, and that’s where the comp ends,” Cubbage said, laughing. “He was a [seven-]time All-Star, and I played one year up there a few games. He’d be going in the other Hall of Fame if he hadn’t hurt his back.”
Rader, who has traveled the world to cover many of the athletes who have been inducted, said that because of his association with the hall, people who feel snubbed have come to him over the years to complain.
“I tell them: It’s not the Hall of Good,” he said. “It’s the Hall of Fame. You’ve got to have that extra level. And for them to think that I have that extra level means a lot.”
Wright, upon reading the other names inducted Saturday, couldn’t have agreed more.
“Forget about baseball,” Wright said. “You go up and down the list, and it is athlete after athlete, and not just mediocre athletes. It’s kind of the best of the best, the cream of the crop. That’s why I’ve always been proud, kind of stuck my chest out a little bit being from this area.
“It’s relatively small in the grand scheme of things, but the talent that comes from this area, it’s pretty special.”
David Hall, david.hall@pilotonline.com