A Mets marketing official "courted a dating website that pairs older women with younger men, seeking to promote third baseman David Wright's All-Star candidacy" ahead of the July 16 MLB All-Star Game at Citi Field, according to Adam Rubin of ESPN N.Y. But the team on Thursday said that it "ultimately got cold feet and backed away from the partnership." Wright recently had been "named 'MLB's Hottest Cub' via a vote of more than 11,000 respondents on the dating website Cougarlife.com." The prospective arrangement, first reported by Deadspin, "eventually was nixed by the employee's superior." Giants 3B Pablo Sandoval leads Wright by "more than 200,000 votes in the most recent balloting that was released Sunday." Wright on Thursday said that he "was appreciative" of the Mets' abandoned marketing effort. He added that he "actually has asked the team to tone down its in-game appeals to fans to vote for him for the All-Star Game." Wright said that he "does not feel right getting singled out for attention while the team is struggling" (ESPNNY.com, 6/13). In N.Y., Mike Puma noted a Mets staffer wrote an e-mail to Cougar Life last Friday “wondering if you would be able to blog/post a story asking your users (who apparently admire David and would love seeing him play in the All-Star Game) to go to the below link to vote David and #VoteWrightNow as he needs their help." After a "back-and-forth exchange, the staffer finally asked his superiors about the idea and it seemed to be quickly shot down." The Mets rep wrote in an e-mail response to Cougar Life, "We don’t feel a partnership working together would be the image that our team and David -- especially since he recently got engaged -- would like to portray" (NYPOST.com, 6/13).
