Legendary announcer Bob Uecker, the voice of the Milwaukee Brewers for over 50 years, passed away a year ago on Friday. Uecker was widely regarded as one of the greatest sports announcers ever. He also had a knack for sharing — and, through his actions, creating — funny, often self-deprecating stories.
In the spirit of keeping his memory alive, I wanted to compile a few of my favorites. If I missed one of your favorites, drop it in the comments.
The One (and Two) Liners:
“In 1962, I was named Minor League Player of the Year. It was my second season in the bigs.”
“One time, I got pulled over at 4 a.m. I was fined $75 for being intoxicated and $400 for being with the Phillies.”
“I led the league in go get ‘em next time.”
“I led the league in hit-by-pitches one year. That’s because I couldn’t get out of the way.”
“They told me to block the plate. I laid down. That seemed safest.”
“I was so bad, they once traded me for myself.”
“The only way I could make the team was because I knew where the beer was kept.”
“The highlight of my career was getting out of the bullpen without falling down.”
“Career highlights? I had two. I got an intentional walk from Sandy Koufax, and I got out of a rundown against the Mets.”
“If a guy hits .300 every year, what does he have to look forward to? I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter.”
On his broadcasting career:
“I thought silence meant I was fired. Then I realized baseball already has enough pauses. I just filled the funny ones.”
“My baseball card had my picture on the front and my career statistics on the back. That way you could turn it over and laugh twice.”
“I knew when my career was over. In 1965, my baseball card came out with no picture.”
On his favorite aspect of playing professional baseball:
“It was the free food. I hit .200 but ate like an All-Star.”
“I used to get sore after games. Now I get sore watching them.”
“I Hope That Guy Puts His Shirt On”
“I have no recollection of what year this was, where the Brewers were playing, or any other context. All I remember is that we’re returning from the commercial break, Uecker is welcoming us back into the booth saying something like ‘Welcome back to [Whatever Stadium we’re in] the score is [Whatever].‘ Then, apropos of nothing, ‘Man! I hope that guy puts his shirt back on.’
To be clear: Uecker had not mentioned this shirtless buffoon before in the broadcast, or brought him up afterward. He just was annoyed by a guy, and he wanted us all to know about it.
“You know, everybody remembers their first game in the major leagues. For me it was in Milwaukee. My hometown, born and raised there, and I can remember walking out on the field and Birdie Tebbetts was our manager at that time. And my family was there: my mother and dad, and all my relatives. And as I’m standing on the field, everybody’s pointing at me and waving and laughing, and I’m pointing back. And Tebbetts came up and asked me if I was nervous or uptight about the game. And I said, ‘I’m not. I’ve been waiting five years to get here. I’m ready to go.’
He said, ‘Well, we’re gonna start you today. I didn’t want to tell you earlier. I didn’t want you to get too fired up.’
I said, ‘Look, I’m ready to go.’
He said, ‘Well, great, you’re in there. And oh, by the by, the rest of us up here wear that supporter on the inside.’ That was the first game my folks walked out on, too.”
Raspberry Sherbert Bratwurst:
From Brewers broadcaster Lane Grindle:
“Usinger’s Famous Sausage is a big sponsor on the radio and another sponsor is Cedar Crest Ice Cream. A lot of our messaging combines the two of them. They deliver a lot of their products to the booth. One night on the air, Ueck was talking about how we had some sherbet that we had had out, and we were trying it earlier in the day. And then he says, ‘You know, as a matter of fact, I think it’s so good you could put it on a sausage and it would be good.’ It kind of devolved into, like, well, let’s all try this … Let’s actually put sherbet on a brat and eat it tonight, taste test it and then report on air how it is. It was raspberry sherbet, and we used it like it was mustard or ketchup. Honestly, it wasn’t bad. We all kind of liked it.”
From former Brewers broadcaster Jim Powell:
“This would never happen with any other partner that I would ever have.
We would just get on the bus to go to the stadium, you know, 3:30 in the afternoon, for a 7 p.m. game. We were in Montreal to play the Expos. I don’t know why he saw that as like a clean palette on which he could go to town, but he did. So on the bus ride, he would start reading the billboards, you know as the bus was passing along, and he sort of developed a character, just goofing off on the bus rides. This happened over multiple years. After a while, it became pretty refined. Like, he was really funny with this character. So I had to do a pregame interview for every game. And I asked him, ‘Hey, what do you think about if I interview you on the pregame show, and you’re in that character? ’And he’s like, ‘No, no, no, I’m not doing it for that.’ I said, ‘That’s fine; it doesn’t have to go on the air. What if we just do an interview just for us to laugh at?’ Under that circumstance, he was fine with it.
So we did this interview, and out of nowhere, I just plucked what I thought was a French Canadian type of name, Jean Jacques Smythe. So I do this interview with Jean Jacques Smythe, who was, as I labeled him in the interview, a renowned French Canadian journalist, highly esteemed, blah, blah, blah. When we start, he did something he had never done on the bus. He became completely hostile. He started ripping me. He was ripping the commissioner of baseball, (former Brewers owner) Bud Selig. Anybody he could think of. He was anti-everything. For whatever reason, that’s the way he took the character in this interview. Of course, the best part was he began to rip himself. And it was absolutely hysterical.”
You can find (one of) the Jean Jacques Smythe interviews here.
“OK, See You Tomorrow!”
From broadcaster Pat Hughes:
“After each game, I would be doing the postgame show on radio. He would be packing up his suitcase and preparing to leave the booth. His big goal was to try to get me to laugh out loud, on the air, while I am doing out-of-town scores or recapping, playing highlights from the Brewers game we just did. And it was absolutely hysterical the things he would do. He would, for example, stand right behind me, and make a sound. Like a wounded seal or a wounded dog. He would bark. Ar roof. Ar roof. Ar roof.
Sometimes he would use props. I’m live on the air broadcasting, and I’m trying to maintain my composure and be a professional. One time, he said, ‘Hey, Pat, look over here.’ And I knew it was going to be something bizarre. I turned around and there’s pretzels sticking out of both of his ears.
That was his big goal, to try to get me to laugh out loud. Once I laughed, then he’d say, ‘OK, see you tomorrow.’”
From former Brewers catcher and current announcer Bill Schroeder:
“This is an example of how Ueck can relate to just about anybody, I mean, presidents and pillars of industry and just a guy on the street. We would go to dinner in Pittsburgh and people would come up to him, and it was not easy being Ueck. Everybody expected him to be on his game, right? He had to be funny. But this one time after a game in Pittsburgh, Ueck was in the Fish Market, which was the bar at the hotel where we were staying at. It just so happened that the furries were in town. You know, the people that dressed up in these animal outfits? So I walk into the Fish Market and I see Bob Uecker sitting at the bar, and he’s having a conversation with a guy dressed up in a horse head. And the person next to him was in a cat suit. Ueck was like, talking to Trigger, and, you know, Felix the Cat is right next to him. He’s having a conversation with these guys like no big deal.
And that, it’s an image that I’ll never forget. It’s just an example of how Ueck could just take a situation and make it fun and not make it uncomfortable. And he did that for thousands and thousands of people, and that’s one thing I’m really going to miss about Ueck.”
