Bob Uecker, whose person still resonates, by launching the first release of NLCS Game 1: "Am I?"
MILWAUKEE – At age 84, Bob Uecker's skills do not fade soon.
Uecker's day's work remains the same: player-to-player voice of the Milwaukee Brewers, a concert he has held since 1971, and as such will launch the first pitch before Game 1 of the League Championship Series National Friday night against Los Angeles. Dodgers
The assignment is a nod to longevity, of course, but also an acknowledgment that perhaps more than anyone, the many characters and quips that Uecker has used gracefully or delivered with elan continue to resonate in the five decades since his famous and modest career as a player an approach.
Mr. Baseball. Harry Doyle. George Owens. I must be in the first row. I had depressions that lasted until winter.
Every part of the public person of Uecker understands a generalized attraction that, for whatever reason, seems absent in today's spirit.
MORE MLB
- NL Pennant greater prize than free burgers
- The secret of the Dodgers' success: leave the ego at the door.
After all, does anyone really enjoy the game analysts by game or color at their favorite sporting events? Looking under the hood of social networks seems to indicate that it is a resounding no.
Does anyone chat with friends or colleagues about Progressive Flo or Geico Gecko or Peyton Manning's milquetoast in the way that the canon Miller Lite of Uecker defined an era of advertising?
Can a figure send a radio call from Brewers at Angels, with many good seats available, and then board a helicopter and celebrate the court with Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon at The show tonight Sofa like Uecker used to do?
On Friday at Miller Park, Uecker delivered for almost half an hour sports, entertainment and who was still who he still is.
"I like to make people laugh," Uecker said. "And I've been through that with my kids:" Why are you doing that? Why do you talk like you do? "For me, it's funny.
"As a matter of fact, the other day when we were in Colorado (for Game 3 of the National League Divisional Series) and Seunghwan Oh came into the game with his interpreter, and after they finished talking, I said:" If I If I were a batter here, I would probably face the interpreter; Oh, I would go to the dugout.
"And I do not know why I think about things like that either, that's something else."
Nor could he explain a particularly unique approach to Friday night's honor.
"I am?" He says to throw the first pitch.
"I was going to take a Percocet and throw it on the top floor, that would have been nice to laugh at, but things like that, I mean, what's wrong with that, you know?
Uecker could be Bud Selig's best contribution to baseball, and he brought the former Milwaukee Braves catcher (race wins over the replacement: -1.0) back to Dairyland to call the Brewers games in 1969. Uecker said that a he often had to face the famous Selig, the tenacious line in his refusal to read the Pabst Blue Ribbons ads on broadcasts because of his affiliation with Miller Lite and, later, forging an arrangement that allowed him to skip some September series for the filming of Mr. Belvedere during the six-season career of that program At the end of the 80s.
Now, it's him the brewers appreciate. Uecker was a social media star during the team's celebrations for a place in the playoffs, and the Central Division of the National League and his sweep of the Rockies in the Division Series. None of them was born when Uecker was among the most prominent pitchers in the nation, but they do know that he played and, in addition, can still make them laugh.
"Your sense of humor," says Brewers manager Craig Counsell, who records a radio segment with Uecker before all home games, "has no age."
Uecker's respect for the game is clear. He said he quickly stifled any talk of making a booth entry during the 2016 World Series to resurrect Harry Doyle's character from the Major League trilogy. "The movie was the movie," he says, "and the World Series is the World Series.
Plus…
"The third stunk," he said shamelessly. "It was really bad."
Uecker no longer makes many road trips to the Brewers, although his loyalty to the radio medium remains unconditional. And as the proliferation of media cuts in the relevance of all, it is possible that it is the last of its kind.
Yogi Berra has left us. So does Jack Buck. Vin Scully has quietly retired to the suburbs of Los Angeles.
Uecker is still vibrant, although he admits that he has thought a little about the afterlife.
"I already made a deal with (the owner of the Brewers) Mark Attanasio," he says. "Once that happens, I will bring you back here every five years, around the warning trail.
"And then, make sure they take me back to the same place."
Comments
Post a Comment