Tales of Ueck, from those who knew and loved him

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 -- Brewers right-hander Brandon Woodruff thought about Bob Uecker first thing Sunday morning when he arrived at American Family Field. It was barely 9 a.m., an hour and a half before the gates opened early for the long-planned public celebration of life for the late, great voice of Wisconsin’s summers, and there were already long lines of vehicles waiting to get into the parking lots.

It put Woodruff in a storytelling mood. Thinking of Uecker does that to people.

“We did most of our hanging out in the food room,” said Woodruff, a friend of Uecker’s from the day Woodruff joined the Brewers in 2017. “When I had a start day and the team was out for [batting practice], if he wasn’t out there, he would be in here eating, and we would hang out and talk. He would always be like, ‘Go get ‘em tonight, Woods.’ He called me Woods; he had weird nicknames for everybody.

“After that, I would start getting ready. That was part of my routine here.”

For Woodruff and everyone else, it’s not been the same this season without him.

• A tribute to Mr. Baseball: Classic Ueck stories

“In 2018, I still have the pictures on my phone of him coming in to St. Louis and him partying with us [when the Brewers clinched a postseason berth],” Woodruff said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, he’s right in the middle.’ Everybody stopped what they were doing and would come to him. I remember seeing that and thinking, 'This is the coolest thing.' He did his dance in the middle with everybody, and that was kind of a tradition throughout.”

Here are more stories from those who knew Uecker the longest:

Tony Migliaccio
Director of Clubhouse Operations
Friend since 1978

“We all knew Bob enjoyed and loved receiving awards, but it wasn’t what he worked for, you know? I’ll never forget when he was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame, he called me when he received the award, and he said, ‘Hey Miggsy, I got in!’ It was just so special. Looking back now, the meaning of it. But it really meant a lot to him, and it was a special moment I was able to share with him."

What did it mean to be there and hear that speech live?

“You know, it was awesome at the time. I had never been to the Hall of Fame at that time, so to see it and be there and be a part of it and actually be mentioned in it, I was shocked. It was pretty special. It’s a fond memory I’ll never forget.”

Bill Schroeder
TV analyst, former Brewers catcher
Friend since 1983

“This is an example of how Ueck can relate to just about anybody, I mean, presidents and pillars of industry and just a guy on the street. We would go to dinner in Pittsburgh and people would come up to him, and it was not easy being Ueck. Everybody expected him to be on his game, right? He had to be funny. But this one time after a game in Pittsburgh, Ueck was in the Fish Market, which was the bar at the hotel where we were staying at. It just so happened that the furries were in town. You know, the people that dressed up in these animal outfits? So I walk into the Fish Market and I see Bob Uecker sitting at the bar, and he's having a conversation with a guy dressed up in a horse head. And the person next to him was in a cat suit. Ueck was like, talking to Trigger, and, you know, Felix the Cat is right next to him. He's having a conversation with these guys like no big deal.

“And that, it’s an image that I'll never forget. It's just an example of how Ueck could just take a situation and make it fun and not make it uncomfortable. And he did that for thousands and thousands of people, and that's one thing I'm really going to miss about Ueck.”

Kent Sommerfeld
Radio engineer
Friend since 1987

“First of all, I think it’s the way he connected with people and the way he told stories, and the way that he would bring us, like Lane [Grindle], myself and Jeff [Levering] and his other partners, whether it's Pat Hughes or Cory Provus or Joe Block, he would bring us into different eras of baseball because of the people he knew. He'd take us back to a Don Drysdale, a Bob Gibson, and he would tell us stories that we had no chance of ever being there in person, but you felt like you were there in person, because he's telling us the stories.

“We have a table here in our booth. It's a round table, and we would sit there before games, before we go on the air, after maybe having a bite to eat before the game, and he would just tell stories at the round table. And it was so good, because we were able to experience so much more of baseball because of who he was, where he's been and then how he shared it with us.”

How often does Sommerfeld think about his friend?

“A lot. I mean, especially when we're in the booth where we are right now at home,” he said. “We expect him to come through that door almost every day and, you know, bust through the door with [Brewers senior director of security] Randy Olewinski right by his side and saying, ‘All right, guys, let's go! What do we have going today?’ You know? And it obviously hasn't happened, but that's how much you miss him, because this is his booth.”

Rickie Weeks Jr.
Associate manager, former Brewers second baseman
Friend since 2003

“I have a couple of Ueck stories, but the one I always talk about is a fishing trip that me and J.J. Hardy went on. We went out on Lake Michigan, but it was the morning after we decided to go out, because we had a day off. We had a good time. We forgot we were supposed to go fishing with Ueck, but we said, ‘We still want to go.’

“Well, we both had to take Dramamine. I’m so used to boats and being out on the water that I don’t usually need it, but I’ll tell you what, I needed it that day. Probably an hour into it, I fell asleep, because that’s the way I was feeling. But right away, we hooked one and it was my turn. So I had to wake up out of nowhere and go catch this fish. You have no idea how bad I felt. I wanted to throw up, I wanted to fall back asleep, but also, I wanted to catch that fish. So I reeled the fish in, and Ueck was like, ‘Nice! Alright, you can go back to passed out now.’ We actually ate the fish the next day.

“It was all fun and games, and that’s the type of person Ueck was. He was over there at his locker every day, he’d come in early and swim. By the time BP started, he was going to work. And we would come back and do it again every day. It was something special. He was something special.”