Bob Uecker, the clubhouse wit who turned his tales of inferiority as a serious league catcher into a comic book narrative that animated his second profession as a sportscaster and industrial pitchman, died on Thursday. He was 90.
His household introduced the loss of life in an announcement launched by the Milwaukee Brewers, saying he had been handled for small-cell lung most cancers since early 2023. The assertion didn’t say the place he died.
Uecker proved himself undistinguished throughout his six seasons as a serious leaguer within the Sixties. He eked out a profession batting common of simply .197, hit 14 dwelling runs and drove in 74 runs. A profession reserve participant, he by no means began greater than 62 video games in a season for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves, the St. Louis Cardinals or the Philadelphia Phillies.
“To final so long as I did, with the talents I had was a triumph of the human spirit,” Uecker wrote in “Catcher within the Wry” (1982), his memoir with Mickey Herskowitz.
He advised self-deprecating tales — some true, some not — as if he had performed baseball solely to collect materials for a standup comedy routine.
“I used to be as soon as named minor league participant of the yr,” he mentioned. “Sadly, I had been within the majors for 2 years on the time.”
However Uecker’s deep information of the sport, derived principally from dugout benches and bullpens, was obvious throughout his radio broadcasts for the Brewers, the place he began in 1971 because the play-by-play voice.
Uecker was beloved in Milwaukee, however he was nationally identified for his comedian turns within the common Miller Lite beer promoting marketing campaign within the Nineteen Eighties, and his position as Harry Doyle, the fictional voice of the previous Cleveland Indians, within the comedian movie “Main League” (1989).
The Miller Lite commercials have been constructed round a debate over whether or not the low-calorie beer tasted nice or was much less filling and featured many sports activities celebrities.
In his best-known advert, Uecker threaded his option to a field seat at a ballpark. However when an usher interrupted him to say he was within the fallacious seat, Uecker responded, “Oh, I have to be within the entrance row!” He was led as a substitute to a seat in a distant a part of the stadium.
“Good seats, eh, buddy?” he shouted amid a sea of empty seats.
The sight of Uecker perched at such a distance turned a lot part of his picture that, in 2014, a statue of him was put in within the faraway reaches of the higher deck of the Brewers’ stadium.
Along with calling Brewers video games for 54 years, he labored as an analyst for ABC Sports activities in 1976 on its Monday Evening Baseball franchise, the place he stayed till 1982.
An entire obituary will seem quickly.