Even in the midst of a remarkable run of good fortune for the New York Mets, I do tend to focus on the distasteful elements surrounding the club, so it’s a good thing the New York Times’ Tim Rohan clocked in with a (gulp) charming portrait of the friendship between Curtis Granderson and Lucas Duda. Unbeknownst to me (because I’m, y’know, not 13 years old) the former is responsible for the Instagram account, @wefollowlucasduda, because the latter is just too darn shy.
For three months, Granderson had been taking pictures and videos of Duda without his permission and then posting them. Granderson started it in July, along with his teammates John Mayberry Jr. and Danny Muno, because they thought that Duda was popular enough and should have one. The unusually quiet and private Duda disagreed.
The account started innocently enough, with photos of Duda putting on his uniform, Duda eating a salad, Duda napping in the clubhouse, Duda wearing sunglasses on a plane, Duda at his high school graduation, Duda wearing a cowboy hat, Duda smiling with a bouquet. One picture, of Duda grabbing a slice of cake, had the caption “The key to homers is red velvet.”
When he is struggling at the plate, Duda likes to be left alone, which is perhaps why he became annoyed when Granderson started taking videos of him. Granderson filmed Duda in the batting cage, playing with his glove at his locker stall, eating peach cobbler in the lunchroom. Granderson usually added a bit of comedy by narrating the videos as if he were a wildlife expert who had just come upon an exotic animal in its natural habitat.