June 23, 2007: Paul Lo Duca holds a yard sale before David Wright brings down the house in Mets squeaker

Like most forces of nature, Paul Lo Duca’s twin eruptions in June 2007 were remarkable for both their spontaneity and the havoc they left behind. Frustrated with his team’s recent struggles and what he considered undue expectations from the press, on June 23 the New York Mets catcher littered the diamond with his equipment after an untimely ejection, then threw a few teammates under the bus days later.

Acquired by the Mets in December 2005 to replace aging free-agent catcher Mike Piazza, Lo Duca attracted plenty of media attention over the 18 months that followed. During the 2006 season, in which the Mets won the National League East but lost a seven-game Championship Series to the eventual World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, the New York press eagerly reported stories of Lo Duca’s gambling habits and how his affair with a 19-year-old woman caused his former Playboy-model wife, Sonia, to file for divorce.1 In the first few months of the 2007 season, the 35-year-old Lo Duca felt sportswriters too often looked to him for an explanation after Mets losses, whether or not he had a hand in the outcome.

The Mets’ 2007 campaign started out much as 2006 did. They were 34-18 entering June, two games better than the year before, with the same 4½-game lead over the same second-place Atlanta Braves. Lo Duca, their fiery four-time All-Star whose .393 batting average (33-for-84) topped the NL in May,2 complemented an otherwise more toned-down lineup that included speedster José Reyes, five-tool terror Carlos Beltrán, veteran slugger Carlos Delgado, and future Mets captain David Wright.3

Inexplicably, the wheels fell off for New York in June. Their offense struggled while the rotation, led by 41-year-old warhorses Tom Glavine and El Duque, Orlando Hernández, turned inconsistent. Losing “every way imaginable,”4 the Mets dropped six straight series, including sweeps by the Philadelphia Phillies at Shea Stadium and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium.5 His team a dismal 4-14 over that stretch, Lo Duca told the New York Times, “[t]his isn’t any fun.”6

The Mets still clung to first place as they opened a three-game series with the Oakland Athletics at Shea Stadium on June 22.7 Under first-year manager Bob Geren,8 the A’s sat six games behind the first-place Los Angeles Angels in the American League West. Their June had been the antithesis of the Mets’, 13-6 to that point.

One player unable to contribute to the A’s June success was their designated hitter, Mike Piazza, who was in what turned out to be his final major-league season. Shelved by a shoulder injury in early May, he wouldn’t return for another four weeks.

New York thrashed Oakland, 9-1, in the series opener behind a six-hit outing from Glavine, who collected two hits and two RBIs in earning career win number 296. Lo Duca, whose batting average had dropped below .300 earlier in the homestand, went 0-for-3, with a sacrifice fly.

The second game of the series began with Piazza delivering the A’s lineup card to the umpires, accompanied by his former Mets walk-up song, Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child,” and cheered on by a Saturday night crowd of 52,920. Piazza was touched. “To come back and get welcomed the way I did, it was flattering,” he said. “I was honored.”9

With a chance to finally win a June series, Mets manager Willie Randolph sent El Duque to the mound. Rocked for 10 earned runs over 10⅓ inning in his last two starts, Hernández was 3-3 overall, with a 3.08 ERA and 1.06 WHIP. Lifetime, he was 5-0 in the regular season vs. Oakland, with wins over them in Game Five of the 2000 ALDS and in Game Four of the 2001 ALDS as well. Opposite Hernández was right-hander Joe Blanton, 3-1 with a 1.44 ERA in four previous June starts.

Mets fans had little to cheer about over the game’s first five innings. Blanton faced the minimum number of batters his first time through the Mets lineup, with the only baserunner being Wright, who singled to lead off the second but was doubled off first on a Delgado line drive. Hernández had traffic on the bases in all but the third inning, allowing five hits over that span, including two singles by Mark Ellis, but kept Oakland from cashing in.

In the A’s sixth, Hernández, whose offerings during the game included “some of the slowest pitches this side of a Little League ace,” struck out Eric Chávez on a 53-MPH curveball, then fanned Ellis looking with two out to keep the game scoreless.10

The Mets’ Ricky Ledee brought the crowd to its feet with a double down the right-field line leading off the bottom of the sixth.11 The next batter, Hernández, struck out attempting to bunt Ledee to third. Blanton walked Reyes on a full count, giving the Mets two baserunners for the first time in the game. Up to the plate came Lo Duca.

Hitless in his first two plate appearances against Blanton, Lo Duca was now 1-for-his-last-14. He’d taken a called strike three in the fourth and was determined to contribute in this turn at bat. Ahead in the count 0-and-1, Blanton threw a low inside fastball that Lo Duca let go, thinking it was low. Home-plate umpire Marvin Hudson called it a strike.

Lo Duca was furious. He turned and argued with Hudson, then walked up the third-base line. Continuing to protest as he stepped back into the batter’s box, Lo Duca got the heave-ho from the umpire.12

Now enraged, Lo Duca confronted Hudson. Manager Randolph slid in between the two, arguing on behalf of his now wild-eyed catcher while nimbly blocking him out, a la NBA legend Bill Russell. As Randolph began wrestling the increasingly animated Lo Duca to keep him away from Hudson,13 Mets coaches Howard Johnson and Jerry Manuel, and then crew chief Ed Montague rushed in.

Montague nobly redirected Lo Duca’s fury in his direction and let him have his say. Once finished, Lo Duca threw his helmet and bat onto the field, signaling the start of what became a “yard sale.”14 As he headed to the dugout, Lo Duca pulled off his elbow guard and heaved it toward the mound. Bouncing down the dugout steps, he grabbed his shin guards and chucked them onto the diamond next. His chest protector was close behind. Lo Duca stormed off to the clubhouse, leaving a Mets batboy to hoover up equipment in his wake.

Into the breech stepped backup catcher Ramón Castro, who fanned on Blanton’s next pitch, a slider. Beltrán, followed with a seeing-eye single past third baseman Chavez that sent Ledee homeward—where he was nailed on a perfect throw by rookie left fielder Travis Buck.15

The A’s threatened in the seventh, but Hernández again came out unscathed. With two on, two out, and the count full, he struck out Mark Kotsay swinging at a 75-MPH slider. His night over after 119 pitches, Hernández gave way to lefty Pedro Feliciano and then righty Aaron Heilman to get through the eighth.

Back out for the Mets eighth, Blanton allowed a leadoff single to José Valentín and nothing more. Oakland’s Bobby Crosby ran out an infield single to start the ninth off New York closer Billy Wagner. He advanced to second on a sacrifice by Jason Kendall but died there as former Met Marco Scutaro flied out to right and Buck struck out swinging. The game remained scoreless.

As fate would have it, Castro led off the bottom of the ninth against A’s reliever Santiago Casilla. He doubled down the left-field line to put the winning run in scoring position. Casilla walked Beltrán, bringing up Wright, the Mets’ cleanup hitter.

With the count 1-and-1, Wright hit a sinking liner the opposite way. Buck, who’d moved over from left field an inning earlier, made a futile dive for the ball, which skipped past him. Castro trotted home with the winning run, setting off raucous celebrations on the field and in the stands.

With Castro having started the game-winning rally, Newsday sportswriter Wallace Matthews concluded that “Lo Duca losing his mind looked like the smartest thing any Met has done all month.”16 Lo Duca thought otherwise. “It was the wrong thing to do,” he said, adding, “[I’ve] got to be smarter than that.”17 “I don’t think we played a good, crisp game” was Randolph’s assessment of the contest overall.18 “A good thing El Duque pitched well.”19

The next day, Lo Duca learned the consequences of his outburst. A two-game suspension (worth approximately $68,300 in salary) and $2,000 fine were imposed by Major League Baseball.20 Ironically, that afternoon’s final game of the A’s series was Paul Lo Duca Bobblehead Day.21

Lo Duca wanted to appeal his suspension but the Mets, unable to replace him on the roster until after his appeal, preferred that he serve out his suspension.22 Stuck in limbo, Lo Duca soon had another outburst. Approached for a locker-room interview after a rainout on June 28, he charged that some of his native-Spanish-speaking teammates were escaping media scrutiny. “You need to start talking to other players,” he snapped. “It’s the same three or four people every day. Nobody else wants to talk. Some of these guys have to start talking. They speak English, believe me.”23

Lo Duca’s teammates seemed to take his latest outburst in stride,24 but who knows. In September, the Mets coughed up a seven-game lead and finished behind the Philadelphia Phillies. Ten weeks later, Lo Duca, now a free agent, was prominently mentioned in the Mitchell Report as having used performance-enhancing drugs, effectively ending his Mets tenure.25

Author’s Note

The weekend of June 23-24 marked the first time that my wife and I brought our two preteen daughters to New York City, the city of my birth. After feeding more than 20 quarters that our youngest astonishingly had with her into a coins-only parking meter, we took a round trip on the Staten Island Ferry, then headed off to Shea Stadium. We came to see Piazza return, El Duque pitch, and our eldest’s favorite, Jose Reyes, run, but came away with Lo Duca’s antics as our most enduring memory of the game.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact checked by Mark Richard and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the Sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Steve Sisto’s SABR biography of Paul Lo Duca and summaries of this game published in the New York Daily News, New York Times, Oakland Tribune and Newsday. The author also examined the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Stathead.com websites for pertinent material and box scores.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN200706230.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B06230NYN2007.htm

Notes

1 Shortly after the New York Post published the details of Sonia Lo Duca’s divorce filing, another 19-year-old woman claimed to have had an affair with her husband. Larry Celona,  “Catcher in the ‘Lie’ as Sexy Tryst Teenager Calls Met Star a 2-Timing ‘Scum,’” New York Post website, August 9, 2006, https://nypost.com/2006/08/09/catcher-in-the-lie-as-sexy-tryst-teenager-calls-met-star-a-2-timing-scum/; Nancy Dillon, T.J. Quinn, Nicole Bode, Austin Fenner, Joe Mahoney, and Tina Moore, “Met Loves Poker, Sez Source, as Paul’s Mum on Teen Tryst,” New York Daily News, August 10, 2006: 8; Larry Celona, “Lo Duca Tries Some Philly Cheesecake—Me ‘2,’ Says Bet-Parlor Teen,” New York Post website, August 15, 2006, https://nypost.com/2006/08/15/lo-duca-tries-some-philly-cheesecake-me-2-says-bet-parlor-teen/.

2 Ben Shpigel, “Lo Duca Has the Versatility to Hit Anywhere in the Mets’ Lineup,” New York Times, June 1, 2007: D2.

3 In March of 2013, Wright was selected as the fourth captain in Mets history, joining Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, and John Franco. Associated Press, “David Wright Named New York Mets Captain,” March 21, 2013, Sports Illustrated website, https://www.si.com/mlb/2013/03/22/david-wright-mets-captain.

4 Ben Shpigel, “June Has Been Anything but Fun So Far for Mets,” New York Times, June 21, 2007: D1.

5 One pleasant event during the Phillies three-game sweep was when Delgado, Wright, and Lo Duca became the first Mets in 18 years to hit back-to-back-to-back home runs. Joe Gergen, “Pen Ruins Deep Turnaround,” Newsday (New York/New York City edition), June 8, 2007: A70.

6 Shpigel, “June Has Been Anything but Fun So Far for Mets.”

7 The series was the A’s first-ever in the regular season against the Mets in New York. The last time Oakland had played at Shea Stadium they were shut out by Jerry Koosman and Tug McGraw in Game Five of the 1973 World Series.

8 Like the Mets, the Athletics had also been defeated one playoff round shy of the World Series in 2006. Geren previously served as a bench coach for his predecessor, Ken Macha, who was fired by A’s general manager Billy Beane shortly after the 2006 ALCS. Josh Suchon, “Ken Macha Never Connected with A’s,” Oakland Tribune, October 17, 2006: 24.

9 Joe Stiglich, “Piazza Given Hero’s Cheers by Mets Fans.,” Oakland Tribune, June 24, 2007: S-3.

10 Christian Reed, “Castro Gives A’s the Ol’ Heave-Ho,” New York Daily News, June 24, 2007: 54.

11 Ledee had been called up from Triple-A New Orleans in early June. This proved to be his last extra-base hit as a major leaguer.

12 Not shy when it came to confronting umpires, Lo Duca had been ejected from games six times before, four times for arguing balls and strikes. He would suffer the same fate once more during the 2007 season.

13 Three years later, Hudson was behind the plate for a game involving a far more certain umpiring error that drew a vastly different response from an affected player; Armando Galarraga’s near-perfect game on June 2, 2010. In that game, first-base umpire Jim Joyce committed arguably the most egregious error in the major leagues’ modern era by mistakenly calling a baserunner safe with two out in the ninth inning of Galarraga’s perfect game. Galarraga graciously accepted Joyce’s decision at the time, and in the days that followed, accepted Joyce’s apology for having blown the call.

14 The term “yard sale” has been used in baseball to refer to a pitcher losing a glove and hat when a ball is hit back through the box, but it’s the winter-sports use of the term that best applied to Lo Duca’s tantrum. In downhill skiing and snowboarding parlance, a “yard sale” is a fall so spectacular that the slope/course is littered with the unlucky victim’s equipment (skis, poles, gloves, goggles, etc.). Bob Ford, “Vocabulary Lesson: Yard Sale,” Philadelphia Inquirer website, March 23, 2011, https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/bob_fords_post_patterns/Vocabulary-Lesson-Yard-Sale.html.

15 Buck’s one previous outfield assist, earlier in the season, had also cut down a runner trying to score: Jim Thome of the Chicago White Sox on April 9. Reed, “Castro Gives A’s the Ol’ Heave-Ho.”

16 Wallace Matthews, “Lo Duca’s Moment of Madness,” Newsday, (New York/New York City edition), June 24, 2007: B2.

17 “Lo Duca’s Moment of Madness.”

18 Joe Lapointe, “Mets Win, but Randolph Is Not Impressed,” New York Times, June 24, 2007: SP1.

19 Vic Ziegel, “When You Need a Win, June or October, Hand the Ball to El Duque,” New York Daily News, June 24, 2007: 54.

20 Roger Rubin, “Lo Duca Appeals Ban,” New York Daily News, June 26, 2007: 57.

21 As he began his daily press conference before the Mets’ June 20 loss to Minnesota, Randolph picked up a Lo Duca bobblehead only to have its left arm fall off. “Oh, that’s not good,” he reacted. “But at least it’s not his right arm.” In his summary of the June 23 game that featured Lo Duca’s ejection, Newsday’s Matthews called it “Lo Duca Goggle-Eye Night.” John Harper, “Willie Sounds a Battle Cry, but Yet Again His Troops Lay Down Their Arms,” New York Daily News, June 21, 2007: 60; “Lo Duca’s Moment of Madness.”

22 Ben Shpigel, “Mets Prefer Lo Duca Not Delay Suspension,” New York Times, June 27, 2007: D3.

23 Lo Duca’s tirade was held in a near-empty locker room. Exploring his claim that he was being disproportionately sought out by the press after Mets losses, the author identified 52 game summaries published in the New York Times, New York Daily News, and Newsday (New York/New York City edition) after Mets losses between June 1 and June 20. Wright was the position player quoted in the highest percentage of those articles (46 percent), followed by Beltrán (31 percent), Lo Duca (25 percent), and Delgado (15 percent). Peter Botte, “Lo Duca Outburst Has Latin Accent,” New York Daily News, June 29, 2007: 87.

24 Ben Shpigel, “Teammates Don’t Mind When Lo Duca Talks the Talk,” New York Times, June 30, 2007: D5.

25 The Mets never extended a new contract offer to Lo Duca, who moved on to the Washington Nationals. Adam Rubin, “Juicy Details Catch Lo Duca,” New York Daily News, December 14, 2007: 104;  Roger Rubin, “Lo Down on Mets,” New York Daily News, December 9, 2007: 62; George J. Mitchell, Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball, December 13, 2007, http://files.mlb.com/mitchrpt.pdf.