When Milwaukee Brewers longtime radio announcer and TV personality Bob Uecker died earlier this year at the age of 91, all of Brewers Nation wept.
But while the city mourned the only Brewers announcer most of them had ever known, there was much sadness closer to home. Tears flowed for a man whom no one had ever met but who was a constant presence in the house.
Two little girls spent many innings of their childhood in the bleachers at Milwaukee County Stadium, later in the newer Miller Park, in what became a family ritual. For these two budding baseball nuts, Audrey and Melanie, taking in a Brewers game was better than visiting the Milwaukee County Zoo and its Thomson’s gazelles, meerkats, sleeping lions and loitering elephants. More fun than a circus. A bigger kick than the Milwaukee Public Museum with its dioramas of French fur traders and the bones of dinosaurs.
It was baseball, and they grew up learning to love the game, just as much as their fanatical father. When Uecker rounded third and headed home for the last time, a constant voice from the girls’ childhood was silenced like a rain-delayed ballgame in a Midwestern thunderstorm.
Uecker, a former catcher, not only called a great game, but he was funny. For example, he reported that he knew it was time to retire when his teammates nailed his shoes to the floor. He said that by the time he batted in the ninth inning the other team was already in street clothes. And so forth.
Uecker was but a component of the Brewers experience. The girls loved watching the games at the stadium, especially when Dad explained the action. They also had a taste for Dippin’ Dots, the “ice cream of the future,” which apparently will soon be part of the past as the company shuts down its ubiquitous stands.
Indeed, the pair would make up nonsensical and annoying songs as a tool of persuasion to get Dad to purchase said frozen confections if only to keep his game focus.
As for the contests themselves, Audrey was serious about scoring the games. A scorecard for Audrey was a purchase even more essential than the Dippin’ Dots. She learned how to score the game when she was 7 or 8 and was quite meticulous.
Late in one blowout game, Melanie was ready to leave by the seventh inning. Not Audrey.
Faced with the prospect of an early exit, Audrey indignantly put down her pencil and said: “Daddy, you never leave a baseball game before the last out. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Hence, the “Audrey Rule” was implemented.
Meanwhile, they learned something about razzing players. During a stay in the right field bleachers, itinerant outfielder J.D. Drew let a fly ball go over his head.
“That time in the bleachers at County Stadium was the first time I heard the word ‘suck,’” Melanie said. “They were yelling, ‘you suck, Drew!’”
Not that you want the kids to pick up vulgarities, but Drew was decidedly unpopular, and it was the first time she heard such opprobrium thrown at a real live ballplayer. “It was hilarious,” Audrey chimed in.
“I also remember the time they tried to close the roof at Miller Park during a storm and it got stuck so it was only raining on (left fielder) Ryan Braun,” Melanie recalled.
Interestingly it wasn’t a game that stuck with them. It was the rain delay that caused everyone to seek shelter under the Milwaukee County Stadium bleachers. A nearby loading dock was filled with duffle bags with player’s gear for an upcoming road trip.
It’s funny what kids remember. The “kids” — Audrey is 38, Melanie 35 — carry sharp memories of afternoons at the ballpark, some not necessarily about baseball.
“I remember the walk to the stadium, parking by that random school and then walking past all the bars, buying $1 peanuts at the playground, walking through the random little forest and down the ramp under the freeway to the stadium,” Audrey recalled. “While I realize now we just did this to save money on parking, at the time it was a key part of the gameday experience, and I loved it.”
Audrey has since moved to Boston and attends an occasional Red Sox game. Melanie, the only one still in Milwaukee, took her two young children, Finley, 6, and Charlotte, 4, to the Uecker tribute game and although she didn’t expect to cry, she wept. There was not a dry eye in the house as they showed a tape of Uecker singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” The song was followed by all current Brewers walking onto the field with “Ueck” on their jerseys.
Finley and Charlotte may not have been aware of the significance of the tribute, but someday they’ll be able to say they were there.
And another generation of Brewers fans will carry on the family tradition.