Bob Uecker had the kind of career stat line that would be sad if it wasn’t so funny. But funny is what would ultimately cement his legacy.
Uecker, who died Jan. 16 at the age of 90, was a career .200 hitter across six seasons in Major League Baseball. He ultimately embraced his own ineptitude, often mocking himself for his lack of ability on the diamond.
Uecker took his schtick and ran with it, all the way to Hollywood. Nicknamed “Mr. Baseball,” he was a frequent, gut-busting guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” for years after he retired. He appeared in several well-known Miller Lite commercials, in which he poked fun at himself when he declared, “I must be in the front row” after an usher at a game informs him that he’s in the wrong seats. He parlayed those efforts into a starring role on the small screen, playing George Owens on the ABC sitcom “Mr. Belvedere,” which ran for six seasons from 1985 until 1990.
But all of that may have just been a prologue for what seems like a casting job that was as natural as a tailor-made 4-6-3 double play. In the hit 1989 movie “Major League,” Uecker played Cleveland play-by-play announcer Harry Doyle, whose wit would often serve as cover for how awful the team was, only for him to get caught up in the fervor when the team begins winning.
(There’s profanity in the clip below.)
“Juuuust a bit outside,” he casually says early in the movie, stretching out the word “just” when Charlie Sheen’s Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn throws a pitch more than a few feet off home plate during the team’s first game. It’s one of the movie’s best and most memorable lines.
Doyle is also crestfallen when he tries to amplify the sound of the crowd on Opening Day and gets feisty when he curses on air.
“Don’t worry. No one’s listening anyway,” he says.
It’s funny, but it may have also been pioneering.
“Uecker’s irreverence enlivened a character — the play-by-play announcer — that had long been taken for granted in baseball films,” Noah Gittell wrote in the 2024 book “Baseball: The Movie.”
“Typically, their role was to set the scene for the film’s climactic game with flowery prose or … act as foil to the players or manager. (Director and writer David S.) Ward and Uecker collaborated on a true innovation of the genre by turning this archetype into a comic Greek chorus punctuating the clownish action on the field with perfectly delivered zingers. It was a breath of fresh air for the baseball film, which had perhaps become overly solemn in the ‘80s with ‘The Natural,’ ‘Field of Dreams’ and ‘Eight Men Out.’”
Uecker, who spent 54 seasons as the radio play-by-play man for the Milwaukee Brewers, reprised the role in “Major League II.” He wasn’t just a perfect fit as Harry Doyle, though. He also provided a template for those who came after him.
“There isn’t a play-by-play announcer in the game who hasn’t once paid homage to the film by impersonating Uecker’s delivery of that line,” Gittell added about how Uecker said, “Juuuust a bit outside.”
It wasn’t only announcers, either. If you ever played Wiffle ball in your backyard, turned on a baseball game or, heck, even tried archery and missed a target by 10 feet, you’ve probably said, “Juuuust a bit outside.”
Uecker had an uncanny talent for putting a smile on people’s faces, whether in a studio audience or in a movie theater.
“The most hilarious guy I’ve ever met, off-camera and on,” “Mr. Belvedere” co-star Rob Stone once said about Uecker.