I was a child of the sixties. I never had a Nintendo or anything like it. I had an Etch a Sketch. My cell phone was a neighborhood party line, and my computer looked more like a ruler with a nifty slide. My TV had three channels in snowy black and white. We invented our games and created the rules. But I’m not complaining. Life was good, mostly because it was simple.

When it came to sports, I had the Braves, not that they were still in Milwaukee. They had moved to Atlanta and left me brokenhearted. How would they have done that when we had been so loyal? Still, I collected the team player’s cards and followed Hank Aaron on my trusty transistor radio. It wouldn’t be until 1971 that Milwaukee would once again have a team. The Seattle Pilots became the Milwaukee Brewers and finally I had a team for my displaced loyalty. Baseball was where my dreams could take me. Game tied, bottom of the ninth. I stare down the pitcher. First pitch, low and outside, but I don’t bite. Next swing up in the plate and tight, ball two. And then the pitch I was waiting on and I don’t miss. The bat cracks and the ball heads out to the wall, home run.! This might not have been every kids dream, but it was mine. I loved baseball.

Before I go on, the game of baseball and its fans deserve some clarity. Those who love it, love it unconditionally. Those who don’t, complain that it is too slow. The thing is that the beauty of the game IS its speed. It’s designed for a lazy summer afternoon. You can listen to the game and visualize it. The diamond, the outfield grass, the warning track and the wall. And then, the crack of the bat. The crowd erupts as it comes to its feet. All eyes follow the arc of the ball. It sails toward the wall. And if you’re lucky, the announcer declares “it’s out of here.”

When baseball came back to Milwaukee, the team found a second string catcher turned sports caster named Bob Uecker. Turns out no sportscaster could spin a yarn like Ueck. When the game was tight, he was the voice that kept you hanging on every pitch. His attention to detail made you feel you were right there in the front row. But his rare talent came out when the game got out of hand. It was then that his stories would keep you listening. Some of those stories would stretch over several innings. Uecker added both depth and excitement to the game. No one called a home run like Ueck. “Get Up, Get Up, Get Outta Here, GONE.” That call will forever resonates in my baseball soul. But he also brought humor to the game. Sometimes it was stories of the old players and teammates he knew. A lot of the time, they were the fun he poked at himself. When telling of his first home run in the majors, he claimed the fan threw it back on the field. When the outfielder tossed it back in the stands, yet another fan threw it back. Ueck finished the story by saying “I still have the ball.” He once described his talent this way. “If I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the ninth. I would look in the other team’s dugout and they already had their street clothes on.”

Sadly, when Bob Uecker passed away last week, the game lost its greatest fan, and we lost its heart. I love the game of baseball, always did, always will. If the game left you down, Ueck gave us hope. If the game went our way, Ueck made you part of it. But no matter the outcome, he always put us in the front row. Thank you for stories and for making the game a whole lot richer. Every game you called was a home run. When you rounded the bases for the last time, and the crowd roared, did you hear them? Those cheers were for you Ueck. Thank you for making my favorite sport come alive each and every time you called the game.

RIP Bob Uecker