Three years ago, I roamed a pregame locker room during the Mets’ improbable sprint to the playoffs and World Series. The game was hours away, and several Mets were playing cards and joking and snapping on one another, and David Wright, already hurting, already past his prime, joined in their jokes and laughter.

I asked Wright what he had missed the most when he was away rehabbing his body. This, he said, pointing to the game, to the room. This camaraderie, the messing around, the baseball life is what I miss.

Have you, I asked, thought of managing?

He scrunched his face. “Maybe, someday; it’s too early to say. What I love is this, and I want to extend that as long as I can.”

Wright’s playing career ended Saturday night, run upon shoals less of age than of too many painful injuries. He had spent 28 months engaged in the most painful of rehabilitations, his neck a taut, tangled mess, his back so sore that at times, his wife had to tie his shoes.