As the late, great Bob Uecker changed baseball movies forever

When David S. Ward's Major League hit the multiplexes on April 7, 1989, many people wrote it off as a professional baseball clone the Bull Durham minor league kit. A wily veteran catcher (Tom Berenger) with bad knees staring down the barrel of forced retirement? Check. A screwy rookie pitcher (Charlie Sheen) with a flamethrower for an arm and no control? Check. A superstitious slacker (Dennis Haysbert) who demands the sacrifice of a live chicken to get him out of the fall? Check.

The presence of these familiar elements was enough for many of the nation's critics to dismiss Major League as a cheesy comedy (Roger Ebert, who reviewed almost everything, skipped it entirely). Moviegoers disagreed. The film grossed $50 million in the US on an $11 million budget and earned an A-CinemaScore before becoming a home video/pay-cable sensation. Until the next baseball season, “Major League” was considered a full-fledged, unvarnished classic of America's pastime (it is one of /Movies The 30 Best Baseball Movies of All Time).

And it never would have happened if Ward hadn't hired Bob Uecker to play the long-suffering, hard-drinking Harry Doyle.

The only people who didn't think Uecker was the perfect fit as a radio announcer for the team then known as the Cleveland Indians (the organization changed its name to the Guardians in 2021) were Milwaukee Brewers fans who listened to Mr. Baseball call their team's games. since 1971. But the former professional baseball player, who once shared the dugout with Milwaukee Braves greats Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn, was bigger than the city and much more than just a sports celebrity when he took on the role of Doyle. He was a star many Miller Lite ads in the 1980s and played beloved TV dad George Owens on the long-running ABC sitcom Mr. Belvedere. He also appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” where he built his reputation as a quick on his feet with a flawless delivery.

There was nothing surprising about Uecker stealing scene after scene in “Major League,” which is probably why so many critics took the film for granted.

The “Major League” hook is as familiar as those aforementioned gags. Margaret Wheaton stars as a Las Vegas showgirl who inherits the infamous Cleveland baseball franchise from her late husband. With no love for the downtrodden Midwestern town on Lake Erie or its famously blustery winters, she forces the team's front office to assemble scumbags and people whose poor performance will result in a visit from the Torpedoes and allow her to move the organization to Miami. Basically, it's “Bad News Bears” with higher rates. This team of losers is expected to rally together out of pride and close out a winner-take-all game with their archrivals (in this case, the New York Yankees).

“Major League” works well as a formula comedy about last-chance misfits, but even with first-rate performances from the entire ensemble, it would play like a slick studio programmer without Uecker. While Ward does a pretty solid job of showing how miserable it felt to be a Cleveland baseball fan in the 1980s (the opening credits of Randy Newman's “Burn On” are extremely effective), the gallows' sense of humor allows for the naysayers. Surviving season after season of heartbreak and futility comes through loud and clear when Doyle and his colorless colored man, Monte, are introduced during the game's opening day. Uecker may be a Milwaukee native, but he's been playing long enough to know about the special feeling that is passed down from generation to generation in Cleveland. And in his first scene, he makes sure that everyone in the audience feels like he's messed up Rocky Colavito trade since their birth.

Uecker Doyle is a liar by necessity. On the outside, he's an energetic man who calls the game with eloquence and, despite his god-knows-how-many-years-in-the-booth, convincing ability to impress. A line drive to deep center remains a distance mystery for him. At least it would be if someone could put enough lumber on this atrocious iteration of the Cleveland Club.

Instead, Doyle must find fierce poetry in the first at-bat of Willie May Hayes (Wesley Snipes), a complete unknown who inexplicably turns a random dribbler into second base for a single. “Hey, here's a hot shot to the hole,” exclaims Doyle as the fielder weakly hits the ball in the chest. When Hayes beats the shot, Doyle breathlessly gives the play a BS color, saying, “Hey, give Rudy credit for putting his body on that racket. That guy's gotta think about his family.”

This is going to be the season for Doyle because it always has been. But he'll make it sound like professional baseball is played here because his salary demands it. How does he overcome horror? Pouring several fingers of Jack Daniels into a paper cup and laying down a few more. Doyle is dying inside, but he'll never let his ever-shrinking group of listeners know it.

Uecker's best moment comes later in the game when he faces the errant fastball terror of Sheen Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn. When the rookie pitcher's first pitch is far beyond the reach of Berenger Jake Taylor, Doyle delivers the film's most quotable line: “Juuuuust a bit out.” It's a huge laugh line that drowns out the even funnier He Tried the Corner and Missed sequel.

36 years later, Doyle — and Uecker in general — is still being quoted or paraphrased by sportscasters of all stripes. But you can only get away with this kind of sneaky lie if you are the eyes of the audience. It's a dying skill that was never shared with sports fans before Major League. Doyle was an incorrigible fabulist of foolish believers. It's noble to love a team that gives you nothing but heartache and to believe it will all work out when it never, ever will. Bob Uecker, who died today at the age of 90, encouraged us to believe that, because deep down I think he did too.