One of the most beloved voices in baseball and pop culture history has died. Bob Uecker was best known as radio play-by-play announcer on Milwaukee Brewers baseball games since 1971, although that role eventually brought him to wider prominence in the worlds of film and television.
Sadly, the Brewers announced today that Uecker had passed away. He was 90 years old. A statement released by the Brewers said Uecker had been battling small cell lung cancer for the last few years.
Uecker was still the radio broadcaster for the Brewers during the 2024 season, in which the team won the National League Central division. Uecker was front and center during the celebration of the division-clinching victory.
Prior to his broadcasting career, Uecker was a major leaguer himself. Mostly serving as a backup catcher, he was called up to the Brewers in 1962 and also played for the Cardinals (where he helped win the World Series in 1964), Phillies, and Braves in a six-season career.
After his playing days were over, Uecker rejoined the Brewers organization, this time as their radio broadcaster. He held that job from 1971 until his death. In the 1980s and ’90s he also worked many nationally broadcast baseball games, including several World Series. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003.
In addition to Uecker’s work behind the mic for the Brewers, he became a national celebrity and a fixture on television in the 1970s and ’80s. He initially garnered wider fame through dozens of appearances on talk shows like The Tonight Show — Johnny Carson was the one who popularized Uecker’s slightly sarcastic nickname “Mr. Baseball” — and then in a series of popular Miller Lite ads.
Uecker’s most famous role these days might be his work as wisecracking Cleveland play-by-play man Harry Doyle in the trilogy of Major League films. Uecker’s exasperated calls of the hapless team’s blunders became famous baseball quotes — like “Juuuust a bit outside,” during a particularly poor pitch from Charlie Sheen’s Ricky Vaughn.
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Uecker also spent six seasons as the good-natured patriarch on the ABC sitcom Mr. Belvedere. He played George, the head of a Pittsburgh family that has an English butler (played by Christopher Hewett).
Uecker’s affable, self-deprecating persona made him a great talk show guest and beer pitchman, but he was also a legitimately great broadcaster and storyteller. In recent years, you could listen to his calls of Brewers games on the MLB app, and they were so entertaining — even if you didn’t care about whether the Brewers won or lost. He will be missed, but some of his legendary calls (both in real games and in fictional ones) will live on forever.
