Former baseball star, horse racing analyst involved in 'bad accident'

Practically from the moment he hung up his baseball cleats, former All-Star catcher Paul Lo Duca has become just as visible in his role as a horse racing analyst and handicapper.

Since his last dispatch from Oaklawn Park in December, Lo Duca's absence from Saratoga Live on FOX has been conspicuous among horse racing fans on social media.

Wednesday, Lo Duca popped up on social media to explain the reason behind his time off.

"I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers," Lo Duca wrote on his Twitter/X account. "I was involved in a bad accident coming back home to New york from Oaklawn. I was not able to eat for the first couple weeks because of multiple fractures but I'm getting stronger! 💪🏻"

Lo Duca, 52, is a Brooklyn native who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Florida Marlins, New York Mets and Washington Nationals from 1998-2008. Primarily a catcher, Lo Duca made four All-Star teams in 11 seasons at the major league level.

A longtime fan of the sport, Lo Duca found a second career as a horse racing analyst after he retired from baseball. He began working with TVG in 2009, just after his final season with the Nats. Since 2017, he's worked as an analyst and handicapper with Saratoga Live.

Lo Duca gained stardom in baseball at Arizona State University, after which he was drafted in 1993 by Los Angeles. He played parts of his first seven big-league seasons with the Dodgers before being traded to the Marlins in the middle of the 2004 campaign.

Lo Duca was then traded to the Mets, where he backstopped the team to a 97-win regular season and an appearance in the National League Championship Series. He concluded his career with the Washington Nationals in 2008.

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