Lo Duca joins NYRA as analyst

Paul Lo Duca, the former Major League Baseball All-Star who has worked as a racing analyst on TVG for eight years, will join the New York Racing Association as an analyst on its “Saratoga Live” show beginning July 21, it was announced Monday.

Lo Duca replaces Richard Migliore, who announced his departure from NYRA earlier this summer and did his final show last Saturday. Lo Duca joins a lineup that will include host Greg Wolf and analysts Andy Serling, Maggie Wolfendale, Gabby Gaudet, and Tom Amoss.

It is a homecoming of sorts for Lo Duca, a native of Brooklyn who played two seasons with the New York Mets (2006-07) during an 11-year career in which he also played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Florida Marlins, and Washington Nationals.

By joining NYRA, Lo Duca is reunited with former TVG executive vice president Tony Allevato, who is now executive producer for NYRA TV as well as president of NYRA Bets. Lo Duca said Allevato helped to polish his skills as a broadcaster when he first started working at TVG.

Lo Duca said the rapid-fire presentation of races from multiple tracks on TVG often left little to no time for post-race analysis, taking some of the enjoyment out of working for that network.

“To get back to concentrating on one card, four to five races a day, and getting into deep discussion and doing TV, that’s the key,” Lo Duca said Monday.

Lo Duca is expected to also do some of the NYRA broadcasts during the Belmont fall meet.

Lo Duca also liked the freedom he’ll have working part time for NYRA. Lo Duca said he likely will do freelance work for Barstool Sports and work part time for his friend and horse owner Eric Fein, who runs a title insurance company.