Bob Uecker

Robert George Uecker was born on 26 January 1934 and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His mother, Mary (nee Schultz), was from Michigan, and his father, August "Gus" Uecker, had emigrated from Switzerland in 1923. He had two younger sisters, Carol Ann and Rosemary. As a boy he watched the minor league Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association at Borchert Field.

He later joked that he had been born on an oleo run to Illinois, a reference to Wisconsin's long ban on margarine. The family was Catholic, and he remained a practicing Catholic throughout his life.

Uecker enlisted in the US Army in 1954 and reached the rank of corporal. He played baseball while stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Fort Belvoir in Virginia, where one of his teammates was the future National League MVP Dick Groat. The two were later traded together from the Cardinals to the Phillies.

After his Army service he signed with his hometown Milwaukee Braves in 1956. His first professional season was split between the Eau Claire Bears of the Northern League and the Boise Braves of the Pioneer League, and he hit 19 home runs between them. He spent several more years in the minor leagues before making his major league debut on 13 April 1962.

With the Braves he was the third-string catcher behind Joe Torre and Del Crandall, batting .250 in 33 games in 1962. Before the 1964 season he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Jimmie Coker and Gary Kolb, and although he played little, he was on the roster when the Cardinals won the 1964 World Series. After the 1965 season he was traded with Dick Groat and Bill White to the Philadelphia Phillies, and on 6 June 1967 the Phillies sent him back to the Braves, now in Atlanta, for Gene Oliver.

He finished with a .200 career batting average, 14 home runs and 74 runs batted in. He was a sound defensive catcher with a .981 fielding percentage, though in 1967 he led the league in passed balls, partly because he caught the knuckleballer Phil Niekro. He joked that the best way to catch a knuckleball was to wait until it stopped rolling and pick it up.

Uecker started broadcasting with WSB-TV in Atlanta and in 1971 began calling Milwaukee Brewers games on radio. He was the team's voice for 54 seasons, the second longest continuous tenure with one club among active MLB announcers at the time, behind Denny Matthews of the Kansas City Royals. In the early 1970s he also did color commentary for University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee basketball and football on WTMJ.

He called the 1982 World Series locally for the Brewers and mentored Pat Hughes, Jim Powell, Cory Provus and Joe Block, all of whom became lead radio voices for other teams. Nationally he worked games for ABC in the 1970s and early 1980s and for NBC in the 1990s, partnering Bob Costas and Joe Morgan on the 1994 and 1996 All-Star Games, several League Championship Series and the 1995 and 1997 World Series.

His signature call for a Brewers home run was "Get up! Get up! Get outta here! Gone!" Until 2021 he never signed a contract with the club, working on handshake deals with Bud Selig and later Mark Attanasio. He signed one that year so that he could be covered by the team's health plan. From 2014 he reduced his road travel, and from 2022 to 2024 he called home games and Chicago road games alongside Jeff Levering and Lane Grindle. His final broadcast was Game 3 of the 2024 National League Wild Card Series against the New York Mets on 3 October 2024.

Uecker became far better known after his playing days than during them, largely through jokes at his own expense. He made about 100 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, where Carson nicknamed him "Mr. Baseball," and he hosted Saturday Night Live on 13 October 1984.

His Miller Lite commercials, beginning in the 1980s, made "I must be in the front row" a catchphrase and gave the name "Uecker seats" to the worst seats in ballparks. At American Family Field the name is used for obstructed view seats in the upper grandstand. He hosted the syndicated shows Bob Uecker's Wacky World of Sports and Bob Uecker's War of the Stars.

He played sportswriter and father George Owens on the ABC sitcom Mr. Belvedere from 1985 to 1990, and broadcaster Harry Doyle in Major League (1989) and its two sequels, delivering the line "Juuust a bit outside." He made cameos in O.C. and Stiggs, Fatal Instinct, Who's the Boss? and LateLine, voiced his own head in the Futurama episode "A Leela of Her Own," and in 2021 voiced "Bob Yucker" in the Disney+ series Monsters at Work.

In professional wrestling he was the ring announcer for Hulk Hogan against Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III in Pontiac, Michigan, in March 1987, and returned as a commentator and interviewer at WrestleMania IV in 1988.

Uecker and his first wife, Joyce, who died in 2015, had four children: Leeann, who died of ALS in March 2022; Steve, a cowboy, who died in 2012 of complications of San Joaquin Valley fever; Sue Ann; and Bob Jr. He married his second wife, Judy, in Louisiana in 1976, and they settled in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls. He was a devout Catholic.

For generations of Wisconsin listeners Uecker was the sound of summer, and to the wider country he was proof that a modest ballplayer could become one of the game's great ambassadors. MLB called him "a legendary ambassador for our game" when he died.

The Brewers placed a number 50 in his honor in their Ring of Honor in 2005, added him to their Wall of Honor in 2009 and dedicated the Uecker Monument outside the ballpark on 31 August 2012, next to statues of Hank Aaron, Robin Yount and Bud Selig. In 2025 they named the American Family Field broadcast wing the Bob Uecker Broadcast Center. When Milwaukee won its first World Series on 28 October 2026, beating the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5, Christian Yelich dedicated the championship to him, saying, "He's smiling, man. He's smiling." During Game 4 the Brewers players had all held up Stand Up To Cancer placards reading "UECK."

National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Wisconsin Sportscaster of the Year (1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1987) and its Hall of Fame (2011). National Radio Hall of Fame (2001). Ford C. Frick Award, National Baseball Hall of Fame (2003). Milwaukee Brewers Ring of Honor, number 50 (2005). Milwaukee Brewers Wall of Honor (2009). WWE Hall of Fame, celebrity wing (2010). Uecker Monument at the Brewers' ballpark (2012). Wisconsin Advertising Hall of Fame (2017). Bob Uecker Day in Wisconsin (25 September 2021). World Series champion as a player with the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals.

Catcher in the Wry (1982), an autobiography written with Mickey Herskowitz, and Catch 222 (1992). The titles are plays on The Catcher in the Rye and Catch-22. On screen: Mr. Belvedere (1985 to 1990), the Major League trilogy (1989, 1994, 1998), Bob Uecker's Wacky World of Sports, and Saturday Night Live as host (1984).

In April 2010 Uecker had heart surgery to replace his aortic valve and part of his aortic root, returning to the booth that July, and in October 2010 he had a second operation to repair a tear at the valve site. He was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer in 2023 and kept the diagnosis private, telling only a small circle that included Christian Yelich, while he continued to call games through 2024.

He died at his home in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, on 16 January 2025, aged 90. In a statement released by the Brewers, his family said, "It is his kindness, humility, and love for family and friends that we will hold closest to our hearts." The family held a private memorial and burial on 24 January 2025, and he was buried at Wood National Cemetery in Milwaukee. On 24 August 2025 the Brewers held a sold-out public Celebration of Life at American Family Field, hosted by Bob Costas, with the cast of Mr. Belvedere in attendance and Ilene Graff singing the national anthem.