Rastall’s Ramblings: Brewers Lose Heart And Soul With Passing of Bob Uecker

For the entirety of life and for most or all of the lives of countless Milwaukee Brewers fans, you could always bank on at least one thing when it came to summertime in Wisconsin: the voice of Bob Uecker on the radio.

Sports fandom, even amongst fans of the same team, is a space ripe for division and argument. But if there is one thing essentially every Brewers fan could agree on, it is our shared love of Bob Uecker.

For 54 years, he was the constant that served as the heart and soul of Brewers baseball.

He was, to many outside of Wisconsin and the Brewers fandom, still a popular figure known affectionately as Mr. Baseball who shined on late-night talk shows, starred in a sitcom, played a memorable role in the Major League franchise, lampooned himself on Futurama, dabbled as a wrestling announcer, appeared in beer commercials and served as a color commentator for both ABC and NBC.

If anyone needed a reminder of his far-reaching popularity, the remembrances that came from every corner of the MLB and beyond just baseball fandom in the wake of his passing should be all you need.

It’s heartwarming to see so many tributes and memories shared about Uecker from people that might have never stepped foot in Wisconsin in their lives.

But for those of fans who live in the state or have Wisconsin roots, Bob Uecker was more than just Mr. Baseball. He was Mr. Milwaukee.

This was a man who was born and raised in Milwaukee, watched the minor-league version of the Milwaukee Brewers at Borchert Park, became the first hometown player to be signed by the Milwaukee Braves and then became the radio voice of the Brewers starting in 1971.

Even as Uecker’s national profile rose and earned him a job offer from the New York Yankees, he never left. When it came down to it, Ueck was one of us and there was nowhere he wanted to be more than a ballpark in Milwaukee.

It feels almost unfathomable to have Brewers baseball without Ueck. He’s been calling games for nearly the franchise’s entire existence. He was there to close out the ceremonies saying farewell to County Stadium and welcomed in Miller Park.

Ueck called the franchise’s lone World Series appearance in 1982, Robin Yount’s 3,000th hit, Dale Sveum’s Easter Sunday walk-off homer, stuck with the Brewers through a 26-year playoff drought and then was rewarded with getting to call eight postseason appearances since 2008 and six since 2018 in the twilight of his broadcasting career.

From Yount and Paul Molitor to Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun to Christian Yelich and Jackson Chourio, he was there for it all. He simply felt eternal.  

As Packers radio announcer Wayne Larrivee perfectly put it: “Nothing and no one lasts forever. But I was sure hoping Bob Uecker would be the exception to the rule.”

The brilliance of Bob Uecker was that he was perfect for all occasions. When the drama was at its highest, he had you hanging on every word and his calls were almost always electric. I’ve watched his call of Nyjer Morgan’s walk-off hit in Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS more times than I can count, and it’s still capable of giving me chills.

But in the early innings or when a game was a blowout, there was no one better. Ueck thrived in that environment with his trademark deadpan humor and endless arsenal of stories in between plugs for Usinger’s brats. Sometimes he’d get on a roll and have a bit or story going for multiple innings, covering everything from his idea for a sitcom centered on the rooftops around Wrigley Field or retelling his experience in staying at the same hotel as attendees of a furry convention in Pittsburgh.

The Brewers could be down 10-0 and you wouldn’t dream of turning the radio off because you wouldn’t want to miss what Ueck had to say next. This was a guy whose wit was so great that comedy legends like Johnny Carson and Norm Macdonald both considered him among the funniest people they’d ever met.

It’s true that the Brewers never could get over the hump and win a World Series while Ueck was still with us. That will always be a bitter pill to swallow as a fan. However, so much of being a sports fan is about the journey of each season, and how lucky were we to have had Bob Uecker to guide us through each one?

Whether it was listening to radio broadcasts on long drives with the window down or just having the broadcast on in the background during a family gathering, his voice was the soundtrack for so many memories big and small. Summertime in Wisconsin will never quite feel the same.

As Brewers fans, we’ve never gotten to experience a championship parade, we rarely see our team get too much national attention and we aren’t likely to see the franchise field a team with a top payroll any time soon.

But for decades, we had the privilege of listening to Bob Uecker call Brewers baseball. And it doesn’t get much better than that.

Special Sections

Comment Here