Hard to fathom the voice of Bob Uecker will no longer be with us

Timing is rarely a strength of weekly newspapers and such was the case last Thursday when news of Bob Uecker’s death broke right about the time our Jan. 16 issues were on their way from the printing press in Abbotsford to Medford to start being delivered around town and the county.

By now, it feels like every tribute to Uecker that can be made has been made. But, as someone whose deep sports interest started with the Milwaukee Brewers of 1979, it’s kind of a requirement to offer one more.

Bob Uecker. I never met the man. I did walk by him once in the concourse of Miller Park the only time I ever got a press credential to a game, which was in 2012. I still have the pass hanging on my office bulletin board. And, it was always a requirement to look to the booth and say “there’s Ueck” at least once or twice per visit to a Brewers game.

But to most any Major League Baseball fan, especially to Wisconsinites and Brewers fans worldwide, Uecker’s voice was so familiar, so welcoming, so funny, such a part of our lives, whether you’re one who hangs on every pitch or if the radio is just background noise as you complete those summer projects around the house or yard. And he was one of us. He wasn’t hired for the position through some nationwide talent search. He was a Wisconsinite, a Milwaukeean and while he told the game stories at least somewhat objectively, like all of us listening, he wanted the Brewers to win.

I don’t remember who said it last week, but I thought it was spot on when I heard it. There is something about the medium of radio. You can take it anywhere. In the boat, in the car, in the patio, in the bathroom, in your headphones or ear buds. When you’ve listened to a voice for 20, 30, 50 years, the man behind the voice feels like a friend.

Man, is it weird to realize that voice is gone.

That being said, the news was not shocking. After all, Uecker was 10 days away from his 91st birthday and his work load had been decreasing noticeably over the last handful of seasons. There was just the grim solace that seemed to hang over the radio post-game show and the clubhouse comments from players, particularly Christian Yelich, after that crushing, heartbreaking game-three defeat to the New York Mets in the National League Wild Card Series last Oct. 3. You could sense that might be the end of Uecker’s 54-year announcing run. No one wanted to say it out loud on the offchance he could do just one more Opening Day.

The void will be felt mightily in the rapidly-approaching 2025 season.

Every Uecker fan knows the story. Raised in Milwaukee, signed by the hometown Braves in the 1950s, started his six-year Major League career, was on a World Series winning team in St. Louis, played in Philadelphia, hired by Bud Selig to be a scout when the Brewers came to Milwaukee, but Selig realized in 1971 the radio booth might be better.

The unbelievable comedic wit that landed him more than 100 appearances on the Tonight Show, the Miller Lite beer commercials, a lead role on the TV show Mr. Belvedere and, of course, his role as Cleveland Indians play-by-play announcer Harry Doyle in the motion picture Major League. It’s a role he played to perfection and did it without a script. The first movie in that franchise remains a cult favorite where pretty much every line in it can be recited quickly by its fans. “Juuuuusst a bit outside” is the one most recited. But who can forget, “Vaughn a juvenile delinquent in the off-season,” “in case you haven’t noticed and judging by the attendance you haven’t,” “Haywood swings and crushes one toward South America, Tomlinson’s going to need a visa to catch this one,” and “post-game show brought to you by…” Well those who know, know the rest.

To Brewers’ fans though, it will mostly always be about “heeee struck him out,” and, of course, the iconic “get up, get up and get out of here, gooonnne.” That home run call is so ingrained in my brain that “get up” are almost always the first two words that spill out of my mouth when I’m at a game or watching one on TV and I see a drive that looks like it might have the distance.

The Brewers haven’t always won enough games to be in pennant races and you can probably count the number of absolutely historic wins the franchise has had on two hands. But diehard Cheeseheads certainly have a fair share of Uecker calls they’ll always remember. Maybe it’s Ben Ogilvie catching the final out of the final regular season game in Baltimore in 1982, Robin Yount’s 3,000th hit, the home runs by Rob Deer and Dale Sveum in the bottom of the ninth inning against Texas on Easter Sunday that clinched the 13th straight win to start the 1987 season, Yount’s diving catch for the last out of the Juan Nieves no-hitter in game nine of that 13-game streak, Ryan Braun’s homer against the Cubs in 2008 that ended the Brewers’ 26-year playoff drought, Nyjer Morgan’s game-winning hit to end the National League Division Series with Arizona in 2011 and even, more recently, the back-to-back homers Yelich and Braun hit on back-to-back pitches to beat St. Louis in the bottom of the ninth in 2018. I know that was just an early April game but doing that to St. Louis felt so good. And it jump-started a damn good 2018 season where the Brewers fell one win short of going to the World Series.

I always felt bad, though, that Uecker didn’t actually call the final out of the 1982 American League Championship Series. That’s been one fallacy commonly promoted in documentaries of that awesome team. The famous call “ball lined to Yount at short, he throws, it’s over, the Brewers have won the American League pennant. Milwaukee you have a World Series!” was actually made by Uecker’s partner back then, Dwayne Mosley. If I recall correctly, Uecker, who did part-time work for ABC at the time was asked to go get dugout/clubhouse reaction for the national network and wasn’t on the microphone. If we only knew then that would be the only chance Uecker was going to get to call a moment like that in Milwaukee. Dang that should’ve never happened.

You also think back to the somber clubhouse last October. As much as Major League players want to win the World Series for their own résumés and professional rewards, those who come through Milwaukee, certainly as time progressed, I’m sure wanted to win one for Bob. Losing to the Mets the way they did, blowing a 2-0 ninth-inning lead, stings for those who were on the roster. Granted, there was a long way to go after that series to reach that goal. But I have to think it was on the guys’ minds when Uecker made his post-game tour through the clubhouse that night.

Well, maybe now that he’s no longer fighting the small cell lung cancer or anything else that ailed him, somehow, someday, when the Brewers have a team that’s in just the right spot with its young talent and pre-free agency contracts or MLB figures out how to limit the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees from acquiring all of the game’s elite talent, he’ll get to see it happen in a front rowwww seat from above.

So long, Bob Uecker. Baseball won’t be the same without you.

Matt Frey is the Sports Editor at The Star News.