Bob Uecker and the Meaning of Milwaukee Brewers Baseball
The passing of Bob Uecker, the joys of Milwaukee Brewers baseball and what he means to Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole.
It’s a testament to the legend of Bob Uecker that the greatest icon of the Milwaukee Brewers didn’t even play for the franchise.
Uecker’s playing days were behind him when Major League Baseball came back to Milwaukee for the 1970 MLB season. But it wouldn’t take long before Brewers baseball became synonymous with Uecker himself. Maybe even greater than the franchise, in some ways.
The news of Bob Uecker’s death has hit everyone universally.
A major league player-turned-broadcaster spent 54 seasons as the play-by-play man on Milwaukee radio airwaves that didn’t reach all parts of the state of Wisconsin for many years, much less the entire country. But Uecker personified and transcended little ol’ Milwaukee. He exuded a larger than life persona and character. He appeared in movies, television, commercials, Wrestlemanias, did stand-up comedy and so on.
Everyone has a Bob Uecker story, whether it’s someone from Milwaukee, in the game of baseball or perhaps, someone from Walla Walla, Washington.
The fact that he was a Milwaukee-born son puts him on higher ground around these parts. He saw baseball played at Borchert Field, home of the minor league Brewers. He played well enough to make the minor leagues and played well enough to play a couple of seasons with the Milwaukee Braves in 1962 and 1963 — the first Milwaukee native to do so. He spent decades broadcasting Brewers games at Milwaukee County Stadium and now, American Family Field.
He wasn’t there from the beginning — Uecker, ironically, got started as a broadcaster in Atlanta calling Braves games — but it’s hard to think of Brewers baseball and not think of Uecker.
For someone with such a big personality and who lived such a thrilling life, it's heartbreaking to see a life that was that well-lived reach its end date, even at 90 years old. A life that turns from present tense to past tense. We now know more of the health problems that he was dealing with over his last few years and his workload of calling Brewers games slowed down significantly, yes. But it did very little to dampen that Uecker charm or give every moment he called the same gravitas, whether it was a day game at the park in May or a playoff game in October.
The one thing, though, he never got to see or announce was the Brewers winning a World Series. He and they certainly came close in 1982, but the Brewers have never gotten back to the “Fall Classic.” Winning one for Uecker has always been the primary objective while he was alive and now that he has unfortunately passed.
But Uecker gave all Brewers fans something much greater, greater than any euphoria from a World Series victory or a championship parade down Wisconsin Avenue. He gave us comfort. He gave us stability. He was always there, when the Brewers were getting shellacked to when the Brewers hit a walk-off home run. The link that Uecker gave all Milwaukeeans and Wisconsinites was the joy of baseball. From fathers to sons and mothers to daughters. He was the medium by which we all heard Brewers games, even if we were watching it on television too.
When you think of Bob Uecker, you don’t just think of him. You think of playing catch with your Dad or your brother in the backyard. Or the smell of grilling burgers and brats while tailgating in the parking lots before a Brewers game. Or family gatherings, going to Summerfest or the State Fair. Bob Uecker was the voice of the Brewers and of summer in Milwaukee — the time when we all shed our winter clothes and forget the cold, get outside, and if we’re lucky, can enjoy the sunshine.
It’s hard to think of someone who was the soundtrack to so many foundational moments in all of our lives and be able to say that about someone who was born during the Great Depression and lived all the way through Brat(wurst) summer.
If it’s hard to imagine another Bob Uecker coming along, it’s because it is. He’s one of one. Not just that, but it’s hard to imagine someone being the link to the past and the present for as long as Uecker was the voice of the Brewers. With every year becoming harder to forecast how to watch or hear a Brewers game on a given day, will there be someone that comes along that spends the next 54 years of their life calling Brewers baseball? All on the same medium?
Bob Uecker made the Brewers what they are. He made them great and often greater than what they were for many years. Not everyone had the power to do that, but he did. Not only will Brewers baseball not sound the same without “Mr. Baseball.” The soundtrack to our summers and falls won’t be either.
Thank you, Bob Uecker. For everything.