Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
Baseball. Beer commercials and late-night tv. Main League and Mr. Belvedere.
Bob Uecker turned a pop-culture fixture to a number of generations, going from a back-up catcher to a broadcaster, pitchman and actor, amongst many wide-ranging roles.
Add the Milwaukee Admirals to that record as properly.
When it got here to a self-described “ex-big leaguer” like Uecker, the Admirals have been all the time within the entrance row with him.
Uecker, a Milwaukee native, handed away final Thursday at age 90 at his residence in Menomonee Falls. His loss of life prompted a flood of recollections for followers in Milwaukee, throughout Wisconsin, the sports activities world, and with the Admirals.
The Admirals’ relationship with Uecker went again greater than three a long time.
Whereas enjoying within the Worldwide Hockey League within the early 1990’s, the Admirals discovered themselves in search of a technique to generate publicity. Then-owner Lloyd Pettit, a former Chicago broadcaster who known as video games for the Blackhawks, Cubs, White Sox and Bears, and the entrance workplace reached out to Uecker. Would he be inquisitive about starring in a industrial for the workforce?
Uecker was already the star of Miller Lite adverts (“I have to be within the entrance row!”), and was only a few years faraway from his iconic position as broadcaster Harry Doyle within the 1989 hit film Main League (“Juuust a bit exterior”) in addition to 5 seasons starring as George Owens on the ABC sitcom Mr. Belvedere. But when it meant serving to Milwaukee and its hockey workforce, Uecker was on board.
“Bob was very, very open to the thought of being a part of the marketing campaign,” mentioned Admirals president Jon Greenberg. “A part of his complete deal was, ‘I’m a Milwaukee man. If I can do one thing to assist Milwaukee, I’ll do this. That is enjoyable. I’m completely into this.’
“He mentioned it by no means felt like work.”
Regardless of his fame – together with nationwide broadcast work for ABC and NBC and greater than 100 visitor appearances on the The Tonight Present Starring Johnny Carson – Uecker’s ties to Milwaukee by no means wavered. After a six-year MLB profession that started with the Milwaukee Braves, he returned to the town in 1971 as a broadcaster with the Brewers. His irreverent humorousness had already attracted consideration throughout his enjoying days, and he settled into the Milwaukee broadcasting sales space, a task that he would maintain for 54 seasons. In 2003, Uecker was honored by the Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award for his contributions to the game.
The primary Admirals industrial went over properly, and the workforce had themselves one of the well-known pitchmen in sports activities promoting them. A collection of spots adopted, dubbed “The Adventures of Lloyd and Bob.” Pettit performed the low-key, deadpan position to Uecker’s wise-cracking comedian foil. Lloyd’s spouse, proprietor Jane Pettit, and coach Phil Wittliff additionally participated.
Like Uecker, Greenberg’s Milwaukee roots are deep. In 1984 he turned a bat boy for the Brewers; he ultimately turned the workforce’s media relations director. When Harris Turer, who held minority possession within the Brewers, bought the Admirals in 2005, Greenberg was tapped because the AHL workforce’s president.
In 2006, the Admirals took to the ice for a pair of video games clad in jerseys harking back to the loud, plaid, 1970’s-era sport coats that had turn out to be considered one of Uecker’s emblems. Greenberg nonetheless has a kind of jerseys signed by Uecker hanging in his workplace. Via the years the 2 turned buddies; Greenberg nonetheless thinks again greater than 40 years in the past as he obtained to know Uecker.
“That’s as little as you possibly can go,” Greenberg joked of being a bat boy. “However he handled the bat boys remarkably properly. Bob was greater than life for lots of us. To really feel like we have been simply one of many guys was an enormous deal.”
The Admirals need to be sure that to thank Uecker for all that he did for the workforce and the town. This previous weekend in Texas, the gamers’ helmets have been adorned with a “Ueck” sticker. Milwaukee will even maintain a second of silence at this Wednesday’s residence sport, because the workforce works on methods to pay additional tribute to Uecker.
In any case, Greenberg defined, “Bob was all about Milwaukee.”
On the American Hockey League beat for twenty years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally at present covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a daily contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.
