Bob Uecker dead at age 90 today.
Known for his humor, particularly about his undistinguished playing career, Uecker actually became much better known after he retired from playing. He made some 100 guest appearances on Johnny Carson‘s Tonight Show. During one Tonight Show appearance, Carson asked him what the biggest thrill of his professional baseball career was and with his typical dry wit Uecker replied, “Watching a fan fall out of the upper deck in Philadelphia; the crowd booed.” Most of his wisecracks poked fun at himself. He once joked that after he hit a grand slam off pitcher Ron Herbel, “When his manager came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel’s suitcase.”
I honestly didn’t even know he was still alive. So we will take a moment to remember him in one of the top ten sports films on every real man’s list: Major League (1989)
- Lou Brown: [Cerrano arrives at spring training] Who is that?
- Charlie Donovan: Must be Cerrano. Defected from Cuba, wanted religious freedom.
- Lou Brown: What’s his religion?
- Charlie Donovan: Voodoo.
- Pedro Cerrano: Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.
- Eddie Harris: You know, you might think about taking Jesus Christ as your Savior instead of fooling around with all this stuff.
- Roger Dorn: Shit, Harris.
- Pedro Cerrano: Jesus, I like him very much, but He no help with curveball.
- Eddie Harris: You trying to say Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?
Lou Brown: [Lou’s talk to the team before the opening day game] All right people, we got 10 minutes ’till game time, let’s all gather ’round. I’m not much for giving inspirational addresses, but I’d just like to point out that every newspaper in the country has picked us to finish last. The local press seems to think that we’d save everyone the time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves. Me, I’m for wasting sportswriters’ time. So I figured we ought to hang around for a while and see if we can give ’em all a nice big shitburger to eat!
[Of course, nothing will ever dethrone Slap Shot as the greatest sports movie of all time. But Major League was a valiant effort.]