With the Dodgers series, you just knew there would be at least a hundred feel-good articles about Lo Duca.

 

LOS ANGELES - In some ways, it seems as if time is standing still around Paul Lo Duca, that his trade to the Florida Marlins last July merely was part of some dream sequence that soon will end with him back in a Dodgers uniform.

 

In Thousand Oaks, dozens of fans showed up at a promotional event Saturday to get the catcher's autograph and tell him they still cheer for him.

 

In Sedona, Ariz., a restaurant called the Brooklyn Grill, owned by Lo Duca's father, remains filled with Dodgers blue memorabilia, with only a hint of Marlins teal and black.

 

At Dodger Stadium, manager Jim Tracy still wears Lo Duca's old No. 16, as a tribute to the player. On the Internet, Lo Duca's profile on one major sports site still features a picture of him wearing a Dodgers cap.

 

Seems meant to be, doesn't it? Part of some greater plan?

 

But Lo Duca knows better.

 

After some rough times, he has accepted his fate, that his dream of being a lifelong Dodger won't be fulfilled. Lo Duca returns to Dodger Stadium tonight with the Marlins, and now, unlike 10 months ago, he's at peace with that fact.

 

"I'm a 'Fighting Fish' now," Lo Duca said with a smile.

 

"Sometimes I still wonder, 'Why did this have to happen?' But everything is good now. I'm happy."

 

Lo Duca is off to a typically strong start, with a .324 average, and the Marlins have been in first or second place in the National League East every day for the past four weeks.

 

Life as a Marlin now feels good to Lo Duca, who signed a three-year, $18-million contract in January.

 

His wife, Sonia, gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter named Bella, in November, and the family recently moved into their new home in Weston, Fla.

 

"I still love the Dodger fans, and I miss guys like (Cesar Izturis) and Wilson Alvarez and (Eric Gagne) and all the coaches, so I look forward to seeing all of them, but right now I'm moving on," Lo Duca said.

 

"This is a great situation here. We're playing well, and the team has accepted me. ... And (the Dodgers) are doing well, so you can't really knock the moves they've made.

 

"I think it will be a lot less emotional going back to Los Angeles this time."

 

When Lo Duca first returned to Dodger Stadium, last August, the wounds were still fresh.

 

Less than three weeks earlier, Lo Duca, Juan Encarnacion and Guillermo Mota were sent to Florida for Hee-Seop Choi and Brad Penny. Lo Duca was so upset that he wept in front of reporters when discussing his departure from the Dodgers, the team that drafted him in the 25th round in 1993.

 

Lo Duca immediately endeared himself to teammates and fans in Florida when he hit a pinch-hit home run in his first at-bat, but things weren't the same.

 

In his first at-bat back at Dodger Stadium, Lo Duca was overcome by emotion brought on by the tremendous ovation and had to step out of the batter's box.

 

"Anybody who tells you he wasn't affected by that trade would be lying to you," said Lo Duca's father, also named Paul. "When it happened, he was devastated. It was very tough for him. When they came back to Dodger Stadium, he said, 'Dad, I didn't even know where to park, where to go.'

 

"Finally I told him, 'When you become a parent, you'll find out that when your kids hurt, you hurt,' but then I said, 'Jesus Christ, Paulie, you're making $4 million a year!' "

 

The message, from Lo Duca's Brooklyn-born, affable-but-no-nonsense father, was clear: It was time to stop looking back. And, during the offseason, Lo Duca began to feel at home with the Marlins.

 

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/bb/3183421

Time to put all this Dodgers BS in the past. It's not like we signed him away as a FA, they traded him to us, tells you how much they thought of him. He's a Marlin now, and for the forseeable future.

he lives in my town.

 

hot.

"Finally I told him, 'When you become a parent, you'll find out that when your kids hurt, you hurt,' but then I said, 'Jesus Christ, Paulie, you're making $4 million a year!' "

 

:lol :lol :notworthy

Just glad to have Dukie on the team. He has really picked up the slack from the slumping Lowell. Perhaps Lowell will be in prime form by the time LoDuca tails off at the end of the season?

cant say enough about paulie.

 

 

it was his dream to be a dodger for life. the dodgers had other plans in their whirlwind of activity last summer and into the winter.

In Thousand Oaks, dozens of fans showed up at a promotional event Saturday to get the catcher's autograph and tell him they still cheer for him.

 

 

I know they didn't play until 7pm local time on Saturday but that's a long way to venture off on a game day.

That's the second reference to 'Fighting Fish' I've read in a week, after rarely hearing it in the past. Doesn't sound bad at all.