Something to Put on the Wall: A Holiday Reflection on the Brewers' Very Own Miracle Man

The Brewers have made an unfortunate habit of getting knocked out of the postseason early, over the last several years. At least in 2011 and 2018, they had some huge wins, and fought their way to (more or less) the very brink of a return to the World Series. In 1982, they stood with the toes of their cleats on the threshold of that hallowed chamber where only baseball's champions are allowed to tread, but (as in 2011, for that matter) the Cardinals denied them entry. Lately, they don't even allow fans as much hope as those teams did. They haven't been back to the NLCS since that 2018 campaign, despite being practically a perennial postseason presence.

After a while, this wears on a fan base, and understandably so. It's much better to win consistently than to scuffle most years and make the playoffs just once every decade or two, which has been the fate lately of the division-rival Reds and Pirates. Asking fans to be happy by comparison is folly. though. They want the championship. They hunger and hurt for it, and each successive elimination can make the next division title feel a little more empty, a little less joyful. Enough playoff losses will erode the fun of a regular-season title, because the specter of more such losses starts to hang heavy over you. That goes even for teams with plenty of banners to fly and trophies in their offices. For a team who has never gotten over the final hump, it goes triple.

We crave those championships because they come with such a rush of triumph and achievement, but also because they become tangible, lasting things—or at least, they seem to do so. The ecstasy of victory is fleeting, but the signs and the t-shirts and the DVD box set live for ages, proving the reality and weight of the accomplishment. When the Chicago Cubs broke a century's worth of this type of frustration by winning it all in 2016, Javier Báez got the Commissioner's Trophy tattooed on his left shoulder, specifically to underscore that what he'd been part of could never be taken away from him.

I'm a big proponent, though, of not overcommitting to the lust for a title—and for noticing when something just as important has been won, while you were watching with your attention fixed elsewhere. As we wind toward the close of 2024, and with no real certainty about how things will stand in 2025, then, I want to spend a moment to solemnize the wonderfulness and the permanence of the thing the Brewers have been able to put up inside Miller Park for good, even though they haven't hung a championship flag there yet:

                                 Gone!

                      Get Outta Here

                 Get Up

              Get Up

Obviously, no Brewers fans are taking Bob Uecker for granted, anyway. Nor is having him behind the microphone, throughout the park, and profused throughout the culture of the organization mutually exclusive with winning titles. They could have the flags that fly forever and Uecker, whose career is winding frighteningly close to its end (if, indeed, we haven't already heard him call his last game; it's possible) without getting to see one of those banners raised in Milwaukee. We should all want that, and want it urgently.

The problem with wanting something so big and so difficult to attain, though, is that you can spend a lot of time unhappy, especially because you really can't do anything with all that wanting. The source of all human suffering is desire, and desiring a championship so badly that it reduces (even infinitesimally) our warm feelings of joy and appreciation for having Uecker around would be a terrible form of self-inflicted suffering.

After the latest October gut-punch, many Brewers who spoke to the media seemed especially sad because they hadn't been able to deliver Uecker a deep run, and the tenor of those remarks makes many of us afraid that the great man is letting close confidants know he's ready to retire. I hope that isn't so. Whether it is or not, though, Uecker's legacy within Milwaukee baseball—and baseball, in general—is indelible. It doesn't depend on winning a title, the way the legacies of almost any other figure who goes to work for the organization does, and it won't be diminished by time or the future fortunes of the team.

I grew up a Cubs fan, but I grew up that way in Appleton, Wis. If I had depended solely on watching the Cubs on WGN each day and (when I got old enough and it developed a bit better) going online to find Cubs coverage, I would have been a certain kind of baseball fan—had a certain depth of connection with the game, and a certain attitude about what makes it worthwhile. I was never thus dependent, though. From the start, I would watch Cubs games in the afternoons, then obediently go to bed at night—and not-so-obediently turn the radio on, low, to listen to Ueck call Brewers games. He is, as much as anyone, the voice of baseball for me, and I'm better for it.

Almost every Brewers team I grew up listening to Ueck call games for was bad. It didn't matter. He understood that the stakes of the game only get frustratingly low (and the pace only gets maddeningly slow) if you zoom out too much. Whatever the records and whatever the score, Ueck has always had the gift of seeing the maximally entertaining and exciting story within a given moment. He's a terrific storyteller, of course, and he would sometimes wend a good yarn right into a sleepy blowout, but without remarking on it or drawing attention to the way he was drawing attention away from the contest. He loves each baseball game on an atomic level, not waiting for or requiring the wider-angle drama of a pennant race. That's not to say he doesn't appreciate the added importance of certain games and stretches. It's just that he doesn't see winning championships as the whole point of the endeavor. I think too many fans in the modern game do see things that way, so it's awfully good we have had Uecker all these years—to push against that, a bit.

Much of the sadness the team seemed to feel with regard to Uecker this fall was about the well-understood danger that this was his last chance to be along for the ride to the franchise's first title. It would immiserate millions if Uecker does have to ride off into the sunset before the team finally finishes one of these fine seasons with a glorious playoff run. It doesn't have to, though. For one thing, Uecker is the wonderful thing the Brewers get to put on the wall. He's the statue in the upper reaches of the stadium, the number retired in honor of his years of service, and that sign, with the call we'll all always remember. As for Uecker himself, while I know he badly wants a title for his team, I can't help but feel that he'll be ok either way.

"Hey!" I have always wished they would have included that in the sign; it's very much a part of the call. It's his way of startling and alerting you: the game is changing as this ball flies. "Get up! Get up, get outta here, gone! For Jenkins!"

That's how I will always first hear the call, when I call it to mind. That's Geoff Jenkins, of course. He hit 212 Brewers homers, many of them called by Uecker, and for me, he's the emblematic Uecker home run call guy. Yet, the Brewers teams of which he was a part were a combined 180 games under .500. They were so bad that, had they not already secured funding for Miller Park by the time they fell into that deep a pit, they might not have gotten it, and baseball might have departed Milwaukee again. Yet, the team's popularity didn't suffer—at least not in proportion to the way they suffered in the standings. We all owe much to Uecker, for that. He is a baseball miracle, and whether he's eventually able to call the final out of a Brewers World Series or not, he'll always be Mikwaukee's baseball miracle. That counts for more even than a championship, which is why the sign is so big and will be there as long as the stadium stands.