'I can’t believe I got to my batting average' -- Uecker celebrates 90

This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy’s Brewers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

MILWAUKEE – Bob Uecker can still land a one-liner. Like this, on the eve of his 90th birthday:

“I can’t believe I got to my batting average,” he said.

Uecker actually batted a cool .200 in the Major Leagues, part of a blessed life in baseball, television, film and broadcasting that took Uecker around the world, but always saw him circle back to the ballpark in Milwaukee. Naturally, that’s where Uecker plans to be today for his milestone birthday. He’ll visit with his old friend Tony Migliaccio, the Brewers’ longtime clubhouse manager who started as a batboy in 1978 when Uecker was still throwing batting practice before calling games on radio. He expects to see Randy Olewinski, who is in charge of security at the stadium, and Tyler Barnes, who runs communications and affiliate operations for the team.

Surely, others will stop by when they hear Uecker is around. It’s a guaranteed good time.

“When I go to the ballpark, I think about living up on 47th St. and Galena Ave. as a teenager and coming to County Stadium for workouts and tryouts that we played in down there for the Braves,” Uecker said. “I was only a couple of minutes away from the ballpark in my teenage years.

“So doing it now and being around all the people there, that’s kind of my life. That’s what I do every day.”

He’s not exaggerating much when he says “every day.” While he’s braving Wisconsin’s winter – Uecker splits his offseasons between Menomonee Falls, Wis. and Scottsdale, Ariz. – he more often than not can be found in the clubhouse at American Family Field, which is equipped with a resistance swimming pool. When Uecker returned from a recent stint in Arizona, he found that the pool had been drained for maintenance.

“Now I get in there and walk,” he quipped.

To Uecker, working at 90 doesn’t seem like a big deal.

“It’s not like I’m over-exerting myself to do it,” he said. “I still enjoy working. I don’t know how much I’m going to work this year. We haven’t talked about it that much. I’m going to go to Arizona and I’m assuming I’m going to work again. You just go do it.”

Uecker has always had a famously casual arrangement with ownership – first with his friend Bud Selig and, since 2005, his friend Mark Attanasio. For a long time, it was nothing more than a handshake deal. A few years ago, coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Uecker joined the Brewers’ insurance plan for the first time and finally signed some paperwork.

A tribute to Mr. Baseball: Classic Ueck stories

But the concept remains the same: He’ll work as long as he wants to. Last year he did the usual slate of Spring Training games on radio, then called most of the Brewers’ home games, including the playoff games against the D-backs. Here and there, Uecker missed a handful of games, including one stretch in August when he was under the weather. He was disappointed by the timing, since it meant missing Ben Sheets’ Walk of Fame induction and a visit from CC Sabathia.

At the moment, Uecker is feeling good and has no plans to call it quits.

“They tell me basically to do what I want,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything that’s going to embarrass the team or me or anybody else. If I do, that’s a pretty good indication that you’ve got to move on to stimulus checks.”

He never pondered working at age 90. Not during his playing days, or when he was filming the Major League films or the sitcom Mr. Belvedere or the legendary series of Miller Lite ads, or when he was beginning a second career in radio and calling World Series games on national TV.

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, I think 93 is the oldest any of my relatives have lived,” Uecker said. “The first obstacle was just getting to play, and then how special it was to be able to play in Milwaukee after living so close to County Stadium as a kid. Then to be able to work radio and television in Atlanta with Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson Sr., and in Milwaukee with Merle Harmon and Tom Collins. That was something I never thought I would be able to do. I didn’t do the Minor Leagues, I didn’t do nothing. When I started [broadcasting], it was in the Major Leagues and I was scared to death. But that’s the way we did it, and it worked.

“The television stuff, the movie stuff, the different appearances, every time I did something, it was a first for me. It was fun. I had a good time and I met a lot of different people in baseball and show business.”

There’s a lesson for all of us in the story of Uecker’s charmed life.

“Sometimes you say yes to something and then you ask yourself later, ‘Why did I do this?’” he says with a chuckle. “But when you really think about the times you thought about saying no but you said yes, it turned out to be something pretty good. Everything I’ve done has been pretty good.”