Sun-Sentinel: Berardino: Tough to say it, but Uggla a beauty

“All things dull and ugly, All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty, The Lord God made the lot.”

Mention all of this to John Uggla and he laughs over the phone from his Columbia, Tenn., home. He and his ex-wife raised two boys, Dan and older brother Mike, and they have heard just about everything possible.

In addition to the innocent mistakes, there have been catcalls from drunk frat boys in the stands, cackling insults from the bleachers, corny puns from broadcasters. Recently, the Mets’ TV crew was yukking it up at the new kid’s expense.

“They were making some comment on how Daniel had to live with that name,” says John Uggla, a technical consultant who retired in 2001 after 30 years at General Electric, “how his teammates were calling him [Ugly] and all that kind of stuff. It’s not really true, but they can say whatever they want.