Front Row
Hey, I figured we could use a few laughs at the end of this week, if you know what I’m saying. Bob Uecker, the baseball clubhouse comic, bought the farm the other day. Everybody loved Ueck. For a guy with the nickname Mr. Baseball, he wasn’t much of a player. He had a career batting average of 200. The batboy could have hit that. He was also a catcher who couldn’t catch. One season he had one of the worst showings by a catcher in baseball history, allowing 27 pitches to bounce, roll, or skitter past him in just 76 games behind the plate. He used to tell a story about how he was once named minor league player of the year. “Unfortunately I’d been up in the majors for two years at the time,” he said.
What Ueck could do is make people laugh. One of his best performances on the field was when he caught fly balls with a marching band tuba during batting practice. After retiring from his lousy playing career, he became a legendary broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers, a WWE Wrestlemania announcer, and acted in lots of TV shows and movies—from the dad on Mr. Belvedere to the boozehound commentator in Major League.
But if you ask me, Parakeet Brain Callahan, Ueck’s best work was as a pitchman for Miller Lite. Back when advertising was fun and had a sense of humor. Here are some of the best of ‘em.
Crack one open and have a coupla laughs. We all need it. Keep your dukes up.
If you know someone who’d like these ditties in their inbox every week, have ‘em shoot us an email at darbyo@darbyobrien.com and we’ll add ‘em to the list.