As fans pay tribute to the legendary baseball broadcaster Bob Uecker, audio from his final call has gone viral on social media.
Uecker, a former baseball player and longtime broadcaster, passed away at the age of 90 on Thursday.
A World Series championship-winning catcher with the St. Louis Cardinals, Uecker was a Milwaukee, Wisconsin native who played one season for the Milwaukee Braves before playing in St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
He then spent over five decades calling baseball games – both nationally with ABC and NBC and locally for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Sure enough, Uecker was on the call in the final contest of the Brewers’ 2024 season – Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series against the New York Mets.
In that game, the Brewers took a seventh-inning 2-0 lead that they held up until a bomb from Mets first baseman Pete Alonso gave New York the lead.
Fans are re-visiting the final call of Milwaukee Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker, who died at 90
The Brewers lost their last game of the NL Wild Card as Pete Alonso hit a home run for the Mets
A Brewers fan leaves flowers at a statue of Uecker outside American Family Field
The Mets held on to win the game – with the final out coming when the Brewers’ Brice Turang grounded out into a double play.
Uecker’s call of the final out went as such: ‘4-2 New York, the pitch… a double-play ball hit to Lindor and the throw is gonna wind up with a double-play and the New York Mets, after coming from behind with a big four-run ninth inning rally, overcome that three run deficit. Wow.
‘Turang hit a rocket, short-hopped by Lindor he went to the bag and then the throw to first doubled-up Brice. And this one is over and what looked like a huge come-from-behind win in a nothing-nothing game throughout the evening – it was that way. And just like that, their big rally with four to wipe out the lead… that’s a tough one.’
After New York poured out of the dugout, silence followed from the Milwaukee booth before Uecker spoke again into the microphone.
‘Well, New York… down, they did it. And the Crew will have it end here tonight… I’m tellin ya, that one had some sting on it,’ Uecker said over the airwaves of radio station WTMJ.
Uecker’s career ventured outside of baseball into the world of acting and comedy after opening up for Don Rickles in 1969.
That led to multiple appearances on ‘The Tonight Show’ in the era when Johnny Carson was the host – where Carson dubbed him ‘Mr. Baseball’.
Uecker also acted in an ABC sitcom, ‘Mr. Belvedere’, and starred as a play-by-play announcer for the Cleveland Indians in the beloved baseball movie series ‘Major League’.
