Bob Uecker Built His Comedy Career Out of Baseball Mediocrity
Plenty of professional athletes have tried to parlay their fame into a career in comedy — O.J. Simpson, Peyton Manning and Shaquille O’Neal to name just a few. But no one was as successful at turning athletic mediocrity into comedy stardom as Bob Uecker, who passed away today at the age of 90.
Uecker had an undistinguished Major League Baseball career, lasting six years as a backup catcher with a batting average of .200. He never was a household name as a player, making him an unlikely candidate to become the facetiously named Mr. Baseball on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. But Carson couldn’t get enough — Uecker made more than 100 appearances on the show, killing with self-deprecating punchlines like, “Sporting goods companies would pay me not to endorse their products.”
Don't Miss
Miller Lite saw gold in Uecker’s sad-sack persona, employing him as a pitchman in several funny commercials in the 1980s. American Family Field, home of the Milwaukee Brewers team that employed him as a radio announcer for decades, still has an obstructed view area in the upper grandstand known as “The Uecker Seats.”
Even in spots featuring Rodney Dangerfield, Uecker’s baseball ineptitude provided the funniest punchline.
Uecker’s funny-guy reputation led to his role as sportswriter patriarch George Owens in the long-running 1980s sitcom Mr. Belvedere, although producers inexplicably turned him into the show’s straight man. Why hire Uecker only to make him the slow-boiling foil to smart-ass kids and a know-it-all English butler?
His comic talents were much better utilized as Harry Doyle, the beleaguered sportscaster in the Major League trilogy of movie comedies. “Just a bit outside” remains a go-to baseball catchphrase, while The Los Angeles Times singled out Uecker as a “canny, witty standout.”
Milwaukee Brewers fans were lucky to hear Uecker’s quippy color commentary on a daily basis, a radio job that he did so well for so long that he was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame more than 20 years ago. His younger colleagues talked reverently about working with him in the booth. “Your mind is blown,” play-by-play man Jeff Levering told The Athletic. “He’s telling me stories about the Miller Lite ads and everything else about baseball and how he spent time with Mickey Mantle and when he was writing skits with Billy Crystal for SNL.”
“He’s funny, he’s a great entertainer, and he played the game, and he has a fun time making fun of himself,” said Brewers broadcaster Lane Grindle. “But at the same time, the reason he’s done this for so long and the reason he’s in the Hall of Fame is because he can call a damn good game. And that should never get lost in the translation because he is one of the best that’s ever called the game.”
