Dan Uggla’s Struggles Linked to Succubus

Three years ago, Dan Uggla was a rising Baseball star celebrating a multi million dollar contract. Today, the team that gave him that contract didn’t even leave a place for the former All Star on their playoff roster.

The Atlanta Braves open their best of five National League Division Series tomorrow night at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with their highest paid player sidelined after a horrible season.

The Braves signed Uggla to a 5 year, $62 million contract shortly after the second baseman rejected a four year deal from the team with which he started his career, the Miami Marlins. Uggle had been a uniquely talented player for the Florida team, making three All Star teams, winning the NL silver slugger award, and becoming the Marlin’s career home run leader.

His career in Atlanta however, has been filled with struggles. Although his power numbers remain decent, the $13 million per year player’s batting average has fallen off a cliff. In his three seasons in Atlanta Uggla has hit .233, .220, and .179. While with the Marlins, the second baseman had never hit below .240.

To put Uggla’s historically bad 2013 campaign into context, this year he has tied for the eighth lowest single season average in baseball since 1901.

Braves beat writer Mark Bowman reported that because of his terrible season, Uggla was informed that he would be left off the postseason roster, and the Braves did not include Uggla in their official roster submitted to Major League Baseball.

Early in the season, it was thought that Uggla’s problems may have been related to an eyesight issue, and the second baseman underwent lasik surgery to try to correct his vision.

The real issue however was not ophthalmological, but fantastical, as the former baseball stud’s hitting prowess has been drained by a Succubus.

The creature in question is a die hard Miami Marlins fan who was heartbroken by her former favorite player’s defection to her team’s division rivals. According to a source familiar with the situation, the Succubus sucked out Uggla’s talent during a roadtrip to Miami toward the end of the player’s first year with the Braves. The source added:

The Succubus fashions herself as similar to Susan Sarandon’s character in Bull Durham, just at the Major League level and with the ability to devour souls.

Unfortunately, there seems to be little that the Braves or Uggla can do to restore his skills. His options appear to be limited to asking for a trade back to the Marlins so that the Succubus could once again root for him there, or convincing the creature to become a fan of the Atlanta team. Whatever happens though, it looks like Uggla will have to wait till next year.

Related articles

• After late skid, Uggla off Braves’ NLDS roster (mlb.mlb.com)
• Why Uggla was left off Braves roster (espn.go.com)
• Dan Uggla to be left off Braves’ roster for NLDS (hardballtalk.nbcsports.com)
• Dan Uggla’s role now is to be a teammate (outsidepitchmlb.com)