Mister Baseball
Photo by Steve Paluch, CC BY-SA 3.0
There’s no doubt that Bob Uecker was a very funny man. We saw it in his Miller Light ad.
We saw it in the film Major League.
We saw it on the Tonight Show, where Johnny Carson dubbed him “Mister Baseball”.
And we saw it in the funniest Hall of Fame speech ever. (The whole thing in unbroken deadpan.)
What’s perhaps less celebrated is what a nice man he was. When Uecker was on the Cardinals, he was Bob Gibson’s best friend on the team. (Here’s the two of them ruining a team picture by holding hands.) On the Phillies, he was Dick Allen’s best friend. When the Brewers lost their Wild Card game last year, the team was naturally disappointed, but the overwhelming feeling was sadness because that would be Ueck’s last game. You can also judge by how many bad things you’ve ever read about him. None.
But what should be obvious is that Bob Uecker loved baseball. He spent six years enduring fleabag motels and long bus rides in the minors before getting his chance at the majors at age 28. After six years in MLB, he became a scout and then a broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers, and remained their voice for over fifty years. He’s gone now, at the age of 90. It’s hard to count the ways in which he’ll be missed.
IIRC, I’d heard that Carson didn’t vet any of Uecker’s appearances on the Tonight Show. He didn’t want to know the jokes beforehand so he could laugh along with everyone else.
Uecker, Vin Scully, and Harry Caray were the three biggest personalities in the announcer’s booth for most of my life. There have been other famous announcers too, but those three guys were the kings. Every game, you could hear the enthusiasm, sincerity, kindness, fairness, love of the game, love of the players, and love of the fans. Baseball made them happy, and that helped us feel happy too.
Whatever the merits of contemporary announcers, I don’t think anyone has quite filled their shoes just yet.Report
The modern announcers seem to believe that they aren’t allowed to be partisan. They have to call it straight down the middle. Uecker was a fan. He loved the game but he loved his team and when they won you could tell that he was pleased and when they lost you could tell that he was down about it.
He treated the umps with respect (mostly) but wasn’t above kvetching about a bad call against his guys or waxing philosophical about a bad call in the favor of his guys.
And he was so good at it that you became a Brewers fan too.
I mean, unless they were playing against your guys.Report
Most announcers have changed their approach to be ‘pro-ballclub’ as employed by the team; fan broadcasters are pretty rare now. Ron Santo is the last one I can remember — and that was purely because he was untouchable as a Cub (and only on radio).Report
https://youtu.be/dlxpo9sTIC4?si=C8umwz0nvTDD5MHH
Still one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard on radio.
And boy do I miss Hawk.Report
Shooter!Report