Category: Sports

This is a nice article about Bob Uecker (“87 going on 27”). I grew up in Milwaukee. With a family of all boys, we did a lot of camping trips. Listening to the Brewers on the radio was a common thing. And it was always Uecker. A genuinely good baseball announcer as a former catcher, he would throw in occasional hilarious deadpan one liners (down 9 runs, “a couple grand slams, we’re right in this thing”).

It’s crazy to realize that an average major league catcher turned broadcaster became so famous.

He’s done commercials, television and films. He was a favorite guest of Johnny Carson during more than 100 appearances on The Tonight Show. Uecker hosted Wrestlemanias and is in the WWE Hall of Fame. He’s in the Radio Hall of Fame and Cooperstown as well, recipient of the 2003 Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting.

But deep down he’s always been a baseball player at heart…

This is just great baserunning. Gleyber Torres is on first and the infield shift is on. So with a well hit ball that isn’t fielded cleanly, Torres is running to second and realizes that the third baseman is covering second. There’s no one covering third, so he keeps running. The infielder has no one at third to throw it to and hangs on to the ball.

The catcher alertly (well, sort of) sees no one covering third, so he sprints that way to cover third but he’s a catcher and slow so he’s not there in time. So now Torres, having taken third, sees the catcher not far from third and clearly says to himself, “no one is covering home and I can outrun the catcher”.

And he does.

Magnus Carlsen showing off his ridiculous memory of historical (and film) chess matches.

Torres now has four multi home run games. All against Baltimore. I like the camera shot of the Baltimore announcer at the end…

OK, maybe it’s just Baltimore. Gary Sanchez rocks his 15th home run which is his 7th against Baltimore:

Gleyber Torres is the New York Yankees second baseman. He’s a young star. He has 11 home runs already this season. That’s very good, but the crazy thing is that 9 of them have come against Baltimore. Now Baltimore is a lousy team this year, but 9 home runs against one team in May is statistically improbable.

And the Baltimore broadcasters know it…