Bob Uecker, the clubhouse wit who turned his tales of inferiority as a major league catcher into a comic narrative that animated his second career as a sportscaster and commercial pitchman, died on Thursday. He was 90.
His family announced the death in a statement released by the Milwaukee Brewers, saying he been treated for small-cell lung cancer since early 2023. The statement did not say where he died.
Uecker proved himself undistinguished during his six seasons as a major leaguer in the 1960s. He eked out a career batting average of just .197, hit 14 home runs and drove in 74 runs. A career reserve player, he never started more than 62 games in a season for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves, the St. Louis Cardinals or the Philadelphia Phillies.
“To last as long as I did, with the skills I had was a triumph of the human spirit,” Uecker wrote in “Catcher in the Wry” (1982), his memoir with Mickey Herskowitz.
He told self-deprecating stories — some true, some not — as if he had played baseball only to gather material for a standup comedy routine.
“I was once named minor league player of the year,” he said. “Unfortunately, I had been in the majors for two years at the time.”
But Uecker’s deep knowledge of the game, derived mostly from dugout benches and bullpens, was apparent during his radio broadcasts for the Brewers, where he started in 1971 as the play-by-play voice.
Uecker was beloved in Milwaukee, but he was nationally known for his comic turns in the popular Miller Lite beer advertising campaign in the 1980s, and his role as Harry Doyle, the fictional voice of the former Cleveland Indians, in the comic film “Major League” (1989).
The Miller Lite commercials were built around a debate over whether the low-calorie beer tasted great or was less filling and featured many sports celebrities.
In his best-known ad, Uecker threaded his way to a box seat at a ballpark. But when an usher interrupted him to say he was in the wrong seat, Uecker responded, “Oh, I must be in the front row!” He was led instead to a seat in a remote 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 became so much a part of his image that, in 2014, a statue of him was installed in the faraway reaches of the upper deck of the Brewers’ stadium.
In addition to calling Brewers games for 54 years, he worked as an analyst for ABC Sports in 1976 on its Monday Night Baseball franchise, where he stayed until 1982.
A complete obituary will appear soon.
