The Voice of Milwaukee

    If I close my eyes, and I think about what a baseball game sounds like, I hear all the regular sounds.  I hear the various shouts of vendors, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd.  I hear the ball hitting mitt, the ambient whispers of 30,000 people, walk up music and ported in sound effects.

Background noise.

    If I close my eyes, and I think about what a baseball game sounds like, I hear all those ambient sounds, and, while that's all there, that's never been what I listen to.  What I hear is a single voice, a voice that is immediately recognizable.  A voice I've heard thousands of times before, a voice that sounds like summer.  A voice that sounds like baseball.

Ueck.

I heard that voice on a baseball game for the last time on October 3, 2024.

    See I'm not one to watch baseball on television very often.  Something about baseball on the radio has always been special to me.  In no other sport has the audio medium married so well with the sport itself.  There's something wonderful about sitting on the deck on a hot summer day, beer in hand, listening to balls and strikes.

Listening to Ueck call balls and strikes.

    I can't say if that's why I love baseball so much, or if that's what first fostered my fondness for the sport.  Over the last 15 years it's definitely been a huge part of my rest and relaxation.  As I moved around the country there was always a constant - listening to Ueck and the Brewers.

    It's impossible to say just what he meant to the Milwaukee, to the state of Wisconsin as a whole, or to baseball in general, though many will try to offer an explanation.  What might be most telling is just how much he meant to so many individual people, without having ever met them.

    That might have been the beauty of it - this voice we all welcomed into our homes, our lives - felt like an old friend.  And while nothing lasts forever, the impact that Ueck has had on Milwaukee will be felt for decades to come.  As long as there are the Brewers, there will be Uecker.

    So when the season starts this year I'll do the only thing that makes sense.  I'll turn on the radio, throw some Usinger's on the grill and listen to the game. Because if I've learned anything from Ueck over the years, it's that we should always try to make people smile, and baseball is always the thing.