MILWAUKEE (AP) \u2014 Milwaukee Brewers fans offered one more toast to Bob Uecker on Tuesday during a dedication ceremony for a giant downtown mural of the longtime broadcaster who died last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always said that Ueck\u2019s legacy would echo forever, especially in this community and the baseball community,\u201d Lane Grindle, one of Uecker\u2019s former broadcast partners, said while standing in front of the mural that\u2019s 80 feet wide and 100 feet high. \u201cAnd this behind me is one of those echoes. We also always said Bob is larger than life, and now he literally is exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Uecker broadcast Brewers games for 54 seasons before dying January 16, 2025, at the age of 90. Milwaukee has honored him ever since for the loyalty he showed to his hometown even after developing into a national celebrity for his appearances in movies, television shows and commercials.<\/p>\n
There already are two statues of him at American Family Field \u2013 one outside the stadium and another at the top row to pay homage to his \u201cMust be in the front row\u201d line from one of his most famous Miller Lite commercials. Now, he\u2019s being honored downtown as well.<\/p>\n
The mural features Uecker wearing one of his trademark plaid blazers and has his signature along with his \u201cMr. Baseball\u201d nickname. The mural is located on the north fa\u00e7ade of the Wintrust Financial Center building on 731 North Jackson Street.<\/p>\n
Installation of the mural began in mid-May. It was designed by Mauricio Ramirez, who produced a similar downtown mural in 2022 to honor Giannis Antetokounmpo, four years before the Milwaukee Bucks agreed to trade the two-time NBA MVP to the Miami Heat. The Antetokounmpo mural is 53 1\/2 feet high and 56 1\/2 feet wide.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s dedication ceremony included appearances from Brewers manager Pat Murphy, outfielder Christian Yelich and president of baseball operations Matt Arnold, as well as several of Uecker\u2019s family members.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was truly interested in the players,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cHe really cared about them. He remembered things. It didn\u2019t matter if you were at Yeli\u2019s status or a kid just brought up from Triple-A. He was at home in that cIubhouse. He knew that was his family year in and year out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yelich discussed how Uecker\u2019s celebrity status helped make him a master storyteller.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was special to get to know Ueck over the years and get to see him in his environment, just with the guys, hanging out, telling stories, getting to be himself,\u201d Yelich said. \u201cThat was special, just getting to be around him, go to dinners, be his friend and just hear about his life and experiences and all the things he got to do, not only in baseball but outside of it, with some of the acting stuff and the \u2018Tonight Show\u2019 and astronauts calling him, presidents calling him and all kinds of crazy stuff that he got to do. It was just a privilege to get to hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first 500 people of legal drinking age to arrive for the dedication ceremony received a can of Miller Lite, courtesy of Molson Coors, to participate in a celebratory toast in Uecker\u2019s honor as they rewarded him one more time for his dedication to the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cLoyalty was his brand,\u201d Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger said \u201cHe had been offered opportunities to go national, to do things, to work for other teams. I know George Steinbrenner of the Yankees kept trying to poach him. Milwaukee was his home and his love, and he never left us.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE (AP) \u2014 Milwaukee Brewers fans offered one more toast to Bob Uecker on Tuesday during a dedication…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-772290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}