Uecker to Become a Permanent Part of Miller Park

“Can you do games, can you do play-by-play almost every day through a deep summer and not be located in some version of the past?”

--Underworld by Don DeLillo (15)

Earlier today the Brewers announced that a statue honoring Hall of Fame radio voice Bob Uecker will be placed near Miller Park’s Home Plate Plaza. Uecker will be honored in a ceremony this summer on August 31^st. The Journal Sentinel’s Tom Haudricourt, in an article announcing the ceremony and statue, wrote of Uecker, “Uecker’s name is synonymous with summertime in Wisconsin as he has brought Brewers baseball to generations of fans listening to games on the Brewers Radio Network. His irreverent style and knowledge of the game are unrivaled, and Uecker’s talents have been known to audiences worldwide for years through his work on television and film projects.”

Uecker announced his first Major League Baseball game fifty years ago and was a catcher in the league for six years before that, and though his roots will always be in baseball, Uecker has made a career in television, film, and even published a book. Uecker has certainly left his mark.

            The statue to honor Uecker comes as no surprise. As Brewers chairman and principal owner Mark Attanasio puts it, “[Uecker] is an iconic figure for the franchise, and his passion for the Brewers is second-to-none. Bob is a national treasure who calls Wisconsin home.” In other words, Uecker has made his mark in the history of baseball, not only for the Brewers, but for fans everywhere. As DeLillo writes in his book Underworld, “When you see something like that, a thing that becomes a newsreel, you begin to feel you are a carrier of some solemn scrap of history” (16). Uecker is, without a doubt, a part of the history of baseball. His statue at Miller Park will only further solidify the mark he has made. It’s a special thing becoming a part of the history of America’s greatest pastime.

            Underworld, which opens with the legendary baseball games played between the Dodgers and Giants in New York in 1951, is a book centralized around the themes of nostalgia and history, more specifically how history is made.  DeLillo brings up the idea that longing makes history, that longing brings groups of people together. It couldn’t be more true in baseball. Fans long to be a part of the game, feel a part of the action. Perhaps that is why announcers like Uecker become so special to us. Uecker is someone who never failed to leave audiences laughing, who experienced great moments in baseball with thousands of fans over the years. When you experience great moments with someone you feel a connection. Sports are no exception.

As DeLillo says of baseball’s history in Underworld, “That’s the thing about baseball, Cotter. You do what they did before you. That’s the connection you make. There’s a whole long line. A man takes his kid to a game and thirty years later this is what they talk about when the poor old mutt’s wasting away in the hospital” (30-1). Baseball is a sport with a rich history. Part of what makes it so great is the connection fans feel to baseball history. Great radio voices like Uecker who have an extensive knowledge of baseball’s history and can deliver it in their commentary, help fans to feels even more connected to the game. “This is the people’s history and it has flesh and breath that quicken to the force of this old safe game of ours. And fans at the Polo Grounds today will be able to tell their grandchildren--they’ll be the gassy old men leaning into the next century trying to convince anyone willing to listen, pressing in with medicine breath, that they were here when it happened” (60). Baseball’s history is the people’s history. It has its own life, and fans take pride in being able to retell their own versions of the history that they experienced, later in life, the experience that they got to share with their kids, with other fans, with their teams, and for many, with Bob Uecker. 

Miami Taxpayers Receive a Break

In the Cambridge Companion to Baseball is a chapter by David Finoli about the economical impact of baseball teams, and their stadiums, on the cities they are in, are moving to, or have left. In this chapter, “Baseball and the American City,” Finoli talks about the very first team to relocate: the Dodgers. When the Dodgers first moved out of Brooklyn to build their new stadium in Los Angeles, a lot of people were angry, including Los Angeles taxpayers, who filed a lawsuit trying to keep the team from acquiring the land for Dodger Stadium. The Los Angeles taxpayers would eventually lose their battle and end up paying for the stadium, but it did postpone construction for a few years while the case was settled. Finoli writes, “The Dodgers’ Brooklyn-Los Angeles ordeal ushered in an era of endless cases that would pit baseball franchises in search of lucrative stadium deals against the cities competing for them.”  

Fortunately for the Miami Marlins, but more importantly, for Miami taxpayers, one such headache of a case may have been avoided. Patricia Mazzei, of the Miami Herald, writes, “Miami leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief when, less than three hours from the end of the 60-day legislative session, state lawmakers exempted the cash-strapped city from having to pay an annual $1.2 million in property taxes on garages at the new Marlins ballpark.” Sure, much of the $642-million dollar park has been financed by taxpayer money, so a $1.2 million dollar break may not look like much, but for a city that is projected to be $35-million dollars in the hole at the end of this fiscal year, that $1.2 million dollars left Mayor Tomas Regalado sleeping a little easier after the decision was made. It’s not clear whether or not this decision to grant the city a tax break on the parking structures will hold, but at least the structure’s appraiser has come forward and said that he has no plans to challenge the ruling.