Paul Lo Duca is a fiery man. This you know. That fire has not always been endearing. More often than not, it's been incredibly annoying, and Lo Duca's proponents -- the kind that believe you need to have "passion" and "swagger" to succeed at baseball -- don't help. Also, dude did steroids. Not cool.
Still, this prolonged outburst is impressive. After the Nationals' Thursday night game, Lo Duca soliloquized the Nationals' situation:
I hope [people listened to my message]. I'm not saying I've got a lot of wisdom, but you know, I've been through a lot of hard times in this game. The last three years of my career have been hell, off and on the field, off the field more than on. But I've straightened my life out, I'm happy, I'm gonna get married again. I went through a bad divorce. I went through all of it. You name it -- and there's not one person in this clubhouse who can say, 'Give me a sob story.' I've been there. So, that's part of life. We've all got skeletons in the closet. But when you come to the ballpark, get here early, get your crap done and get ready to play.
Of course, that's just a tiny piece. There are, like, 900 more words, should you care to read them all. More importantly, I really, really want to make fun of Lo Duca for being such a clown, but it's hard. He clearly cares very much about what he's talking about. That's sort of admirable.