Mets' David Wright, 35, Retires Due to Health Battle — and Rival Yankees Surprisingly Honor Him

Baseball rivalries aren’t as fierce as they seem!

The New York Yankees are celebrating David Wright of the New York Mets, who has retired from the sport at age 35 due to his battle with spinal stenosis.

The Yankees took out a full-page ad in the New York Post on Friday to honor the athlete, who has played for the Mets his entire 14-year career. The bulk of the ad displays the Yankees logo and text in the team’s colors.

“The New York Yankees congratulate David Wright on a distinguished career,” the ad says.

Wright’s spinal stenosis has required multiple surgeries. He hadn’t been on the active roster since May 2016, but he was recently reactivated and took his final at-bat Saturday night in a sold-out game against the Miami Marlins.

“Man, I’m glad we won,” he said into a microphone after his final game. “This is love. I can’t say anything else. This is love.”

He later shared in a postgame press conference that he “can’t sit here and tell you that I’m good with where I’m at right now.”

“That would be a lie,” he added. “That would be false. You love something so much and you want to continue that.”

In a press conference on Sept. 13, Wright announced he would retire because of his medical condition.

“I needed the baseball stuff and I needed the games for my body to finally tell me, ‘It’s not happening,’ ” Wright explained. “It’s not working. From everything the doctors have told me, there’s not going to be any improvement.”

He added: “Some days the pain could be moderate and manageable. Some days it was too much to be thinking about baseball. … It’s debilitating to play baseball.”

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