Know what really makes me mad?

[The stache]

I've said it time and time again. I am as big a baseball fan as there is on this planet. I love everything about the game. To me, baseball is the perfect game, and its history continues to amaze me. Many evenings, if I'm not watching a Major League game, I'm reading Pitching in a Pinch, by the great Christy Mathewson. Or, I'm watching my blu ray of When it Was a Game, thrilling to the sites and sounds of the game as it was played during the golden era, a few seconds of seeing Cy Young, or Honus Wagner in full color bringing a tear to my eye. Or, I might be looking through my baseball card collection, examining a Walter Johnson under a microscope, or flipping over an Eddie Mathews, or a Bob Gibson card, a whiff of 50 year old gum escaping from my Card Saver II. More often than not, I'm crunching some statistical comparison on Baseball Reference, or reading about a player on SABR.org. And as bad as the Brewers are right now (and, they stink. I'm not going to sugar coat it), I know that eventually, it will get better. This malaise is not interminable. Eventually, our owner will come to his senses-I have to believe that. Whatever happens, I have watched this team, and loved this team, since the late 70s. Now that I am feeling a little better, I am hoping to watch a game should the Brewers ever be shown on national television again. I just can't justify paying for MLB.tv while we are playing so poorly. I'm not going to burn $120 for something that will only make me angry. So, when the Brewers end up on ESPN, or elsewhere, I will watch them. I'm only 43, and though the Brewers have only made it to the World Series once in my lifetime, I plan on breathing for many years more. So, someday, they have to get to the Series, right?

 

So, why am I mad? I'll tell you why. I'm mad because I feel that Bob Uecker's time is running out, and he has given the better part of his life to this franchise, and they have given him little back in return. Oh, he's been paid. He's famous, and he's seen some incredible things. But I want to see the Brewers win it all not for me, or for the average fan. I want them to win it for Ueck. And this franchise, which was on the right path not long ago with a plethora of young talent, has done a complete 180. Now, we are the laughing stock of baseball, and while we have some promising young players in the minors, our farm system as a whole is one of the worst in baseball.

 

We're not going to the World Series any time soon, and I fear that we won't get back there while Bob is alive.

 

There are two things that greatly anger me in sports right now. Jerry Kramer's inexplicable omission from the Pro Football Hall of Fame is one. This is the other. I can't speak for everybody, but I know I will speak for many of us when I say that Bob Uecker has given me more hours of enjoyment, and laughter, than probably anybody else in the entertainment world. And knowing that this great man, this unequaled lover of Milwaukee baseball, is not going to see the team he has stood by for so long make it to the promised land, well, it has me absolutely steamed. And the statement from Mark Attanasio that "he is not looking at the manager or general manager right now" while our team has gone 11-34 dating back to last year, is just the cherry on the worst kind of sundae imaginable.

 

I am trying to remain positive about this season, even as it spirals out of control. I will weather this storm, even if it takes another 3-4 years before we see anything resembling winning baseball again here in Milwaukee. After all, I've done it before. I can do it again.

 

But Ueck deserves better.

[SoupTown]

It is so odd, but I was thinking this exactly. I started following the Crew since day 1, in 1970. I am 58. I think they will be on some up, that I can enjoy, before I am at that big diamond in the sky.

 

But, just in my mind came, 'poor Ueck, he deserves so much better'. I am actually ashamed at the embarrassment that Ueck must have to put up with.

[Invader3K]

I was thinking about this as well. Uecker does deserve better than this team at this point. But then again, we all do.

 

If the poor play continues, the attendance will continue to plunge, and Attanasio's hand will be forced. It might be too late to start a turn around to give Uecker a chance to see a championship contender again, though.

[The stache]

Oh, we all do deserve better. Absolutely. But for most of us, there is time. For Ueck, well, he's 81. He doesn't have too many summers left, and he deserves to see the team he loves, the team he has watched and talked about for decades, to win the final game of the season just once. And our owner demurring, saying "well, our manager and GM aren't being looked at" is a friggin' slap in the face.

[tmwiese55]

Amen, I don't know what it'll be like when Ueck is gone, just won't be the same.

 

Regarding MA saying that, that's what everyone says. You have to believe they're looking at all this. The owner can't say midseason that he's looking at firing the coach/gm. Almost every coach about to get fired has this said about them by the owner, then he gets fired a few weeks later. Think of the media hoopla if he says yea I'm definitely looking at canning Ron in the next couple weeks if it doesn't turn around.

[torts]

Ueck has 2 statues, what more does a guy need?

[pacopete4]

Ueck has 2 statues, what more does a guy need?

 

 

3?

[3and2Fastball]

Ueck has 2 statues, what more does a guy need?

 

A World Series pennant

[AKCheesehead]

Everything 'Stache said, and I'd like to add: If the Brewers do win the World Series someday, it won't really feel right without a crazed Uecker sound clip to go along with the win. Imagine if they got a K for the final out to put it away, it would be the HEEEEEEeeeee heard 'round the world.

[jerichoholicninja]

Didn't he win a World Series with the Cardinals? Either way, the man has done so much in his life I doubt he loses any sleep over the team he doesn't even play for not winning a World Series.

[splitterpfj]

Don't feel sorry for Bob, I'm sure he doesn't feel sorry for himself.

 

Ueck got to play in the major leagues, he has a World Series ring as a player, he's done TV, movies, Miller Lite commercials, and a book, while doing what he loves for decades.

 

That's an amazing life - nobody gets it all.

[Invader3K]

Ueck has 2 statues, what more does a guy need?

 

A World Series pennant

 

Well, to be fair, he does already have a World Series ring...just from the wrong team.

[The stache]

I know he has a ring. But winning a World Series ring as a 29 year old backup catcher, during a season which he hit .198 with 1 home run and 6 RBI, doesn't equate in the slightest to calling the final out of a World Series win for the team that he has covered day in, day out for nearly four decades. It's not even in the same ballpark.

 

Ask Jim McMahon if winning his Super Bowl ring as a backup of the Packers was as thrilling as winning a ring in 1985 as the starting quarterback for the Bears. The hardware might be much the same, but the experience, the emotional investment, and the ultimate payoff, I promise, are nowhere close. Ueck loves the Brewers. He may have liked playing in St. Louis. He may have even liked spending his time on the bench, south of the Mendoza line, backing up that interminable wind bag Tim McCarver. But one cannot think of the Brewers without thinking of Bob Uecker. Can the same be said of the Cardinals? I think of Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, the Gashouse Gang, Ozzie Smith, or Albert Pujols. Bob Uecker isn't even an afterthought when I think of the hated Cardinals.

 

I don't feel sorry for Uecker. As I said, he's had a pretty great life all in all. But I guess I feel shame that my team, in the nearly 40 years since Uecker came to Milwaukee as announcer, hasn't won it all even once. I think back to the utter glee in his voice when we won the American League pennant in 1982. I'd like to hear that again. I think Bob deserves that.

[danzig6767]

A lot of long time announcers for teams in various sports were never able to call games for their team in a championship winning season. Uecker isn't alone is this. He's still been able to live a dream type of life which most sports fans can only envy. He doesn't need any sympathy, nor want any.

[SoupTown]

danzig, how do you know 'nor want any'? Maybe what you say is true, but when you come on and type like you just chatted with Bob over dinner, and you are giving a quote... well, that will make other 'firm facts' you state, re any topic, be questioned.

 

45 years is a long time to travel with a second class, non winner, organisation. It could be tiresome and emotionally not as fun as the odd season victory.

 

Somehow this thread has turned into Bob's past achievements and lifestyle and how wonderful it is.

[Pugger]

Amen, I don't know what it'll be like when Ueck is gone, just won't be the same.

 

Regarding MA saying that, that's what everyone says. You have to believe they're looking at all this. The owner can't say midseason that he's looking at firing the coach/gm. Almost every coach about to get fired has this said about them by the owner, then he gets fired a few weeks later. Think of the media hoopla if he says yea I'm definitely looking at canning Ron in the next couple weeks if it doesn't turn around.

 

Yes, MA isn't going to say that publicly. What good would that do besides make the fans happy?

[SRB]

I don't agree with this sentiment. What makes Uecker the greatest is he loves sitting in the booth calling the game when the Brewers are the worst team in baseball just as much as when they are winning. (In fact that's arguably when he's at his most entertaining.) I doubt he's all that bothered that the Brewers are not going to win a World Series anytime soon. It's not all about winning.

[gypcasino]

Hit Ueck up for a photo or an autograph next time you see him in public. Chances are good that you probably won't feel as bad for him after that experience.

[AZBrewCrew]

Hit Ueck up for a photo or an autograph next time you see him in public. Chances are good that you probably won't feel as bad for him after that experience.

Yeah. probably opposite of this experience someone had with Vincent Scully