Paul Lo Duca's Getting Upset!

A little more than a week ago a story was circulating the internets about some disharmony in the Mets clubhouse. A blog called Nyjer Please posted about some internecine rivalries among the team that were drawn on racial lines. The team, it was claimed, was split among Latino and non-Latino factions with Julio Franco, old enough to know better, at the center of the animosity.

Julio Franco, who recently celebrated his 89th birthday, is becoming a "clubhouse cancer". Since the losing streak, my source told me that Franco has become the ringleader of a "racial divide" in the clubhouse between the Latinos and non-Latinos. While it isn't a straight divide, it was painfully obvious there was something going on during last night's debacle at Yankee Stadium, where the Latinos were sitting in the dugout while the non-Latinos were on the dugout railing the entire game.

Many called bullshit on the rumors but they may get some new legs after Paul Lo Duca addressed reporters at Shea after last night's rainout.

"I'll do this (interview), but you need to start talking to other players," Lo Duca announced loudly after he was approached by a radio reporter after the Mets-Cardinals series finale was washed out by rain. "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."

He's right. It's not like Sammy Sosa is on the team. Others around the Mets have called for players like Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado to stand up and take more accountability for the team's June slide. Never have they accused the players of pretending not to speak English, though. Lisa Olson of the Daily News took Lo Duca to task for his outburst, writing that the Latin players are "generally accessible and usually willing to communicate in English. Outside of Carlos Delgado, whose grumpiness coincides with his batting slump, the Mets' Latino players, like their Anglo counterparts, are almost always accountable."

More accessible than Zeke Mowatt, anyway.

Lo Duca, aka Captain Red Ass, has been a temperamental cuss of late. He's facing a two-game suspension for his tirade at an umpire and had to be held back from attacking a reporter asking about a woman he was spotted with at Aqueduct. Noted agitator Franco played peacemaker, by the by. He's also tired of being asked about when he's going to drop his appeal of said suspension.

"Listen up, everybody," LoDuca had shouted. "Stop asking me when I'm going to drop my suspension (appeal). When are you guys going to drop it? I'm tired of talking about it. Go ask Tony (Bernazard) or Willie (Randolph). God almighty, it's like the president got killed."

Lo Duca, clearly a master of hyperbole, didn't elaborate on how in any way, shape or form Met beat writers asking about when the starting catcher might be out of lineup was like the assassination of the President of the United States. Ramon Castro is well-suited to play the role of disgruntled office-seeker Charles Guiteau, however.