To Absent Friends - Bob Uecker

"Mr. Baseball"

1934-2025

As soon as I heard of the death of Bob Uecker yesterday at the age of 90, I knew that an Absent Friends post would be absolutely required.  Before I did, though, I reached out to my Milwaukee pal Steve Ozbolt, and I asked him to tell me something about him that people outside Milwaukee didn't know about him.  Oz, who told me that he and indeed all of Milwaukee were truly heartbroken over the news of Ueck's passing.  It made me think of the losses over the years that we have experienced here in Pittsburgh - Bob Prince in the 1985, Myron Cope in 2008, and Stan Savran in 2023.  Steve told me that he would put some stuff together to help me write my tribute.  When I received his email later in the day, there was nothing that I could add to it.  Therefore, I now turn you over to Special Guest Blogger, Steve "Oz" Ozbolt.....

The word "Icon" is overused.

However, in the case of describing “Mr Baseball” Bob Uecker it is wholly insufficient. No one, and I mean no one, not Henry Aaron, Warren Spahn, Robin Yount, Eddie Mathews, not even Commissioner Emeritus of baseball Bud Selig meant as much to Milwaukee baseball as Bob.

For 54 seasons he was the voice of our summers, of triumph and tragedy, memorable moments, even keeping us all entertained during the lean years.

The city of Milwaukee, Brewers fans everywhere and especially baseball lost a legend today. He remains the only player ever born in Milwaukee to suit up for the local nine. 

Now, to hear Ueck talk about his career, you would think that he wasn’t a good player but he single handedly kept Sandy Koufax from unanimous election to the Hall of Fame by going 4 for 10 off of him. 

As an innovator during his second stint with the Braves he invented the position of a personal catch….er…chaser of Phil Niekro’s Knuckleball. 

When his Cardinals teammates hid his glove in an attempt to prevent him from playing in the 1964 World Series he still managed to catch batting practice flies, albeit, using a tuba.  

I mean, how many among us were juuuuuuuust mediocle enough to have a lifetime .200 batting average? No need to overachieve and his .201 or heaven forbid cross the Mendoza line and dip to .199 he managed to stick the landing. I mean, that’s got to count for something.   

 When he was notified of his retirement (after being told by his manager to “grab a bat and stop this rally” and having the third base coach turn his back when Ueck looked down for the sign) he took a stab at scouting. However after turning in a report covered in mashed potatoes and gravy they decided that the broadcast booth might be a better option. He was the soundtrack of every Milwaukee summer. With too many iconic call to mention I will bet that any Brewers fan alive on Easter Sunday 1987 will never forget where they were listening to Bob’s call of the game tying and winning home runs that propelled “Team Streak” to win number 12 (of 13) to open the season. 

From his love of the players here, Robin, Molly, Henry, Yelli (I’m beginning to notice a pattern here) , “Buddy” Selig and his love of the city; he refused to leave for Hollywood (taking a bit of time off for Mr Belevedere) (The movie Major League was filmed in Milwaukee) or for bigger cities (George Steinbrenner made multiple offers for him to join the Yankees broadcast team) he remained loyal to the city that he called home. He was an ambassador for the game, one of Johnny Carson’s favorite guests a network broadcaster and even a WWE Hall of famer. 

Simply put, icon doesn’t even come close to capturing what he means to us here. 

May your legend live forever, thanks for all of the memories Bob. 

Thanks for that, Steve, and we all share in your loss, and to close on a happier note, I have to include perhaps Uecker's most famous commercial, The"front row" one for Miller Lite.

RIP Bob Uecker.

P.S.  Last night Steve sent me a message to tell me that one year the Brewers players voted Bob Uecker a full share of their post-season money winnings.  Uecker accepted the gift, and then gave all of the money to various Milwaukee charities.

One Last Visit from Janus, and Three Quickie Movie Reviews

Remember my reference to the ancient Roman god Janus last week? Well, I thought that we would pay one last visit with him before we get too deep into the month of January, if we haven't already.

BOOKS

In 2024, I read thirty books.  I'm not going to do a Top Ten list for those books, but here are three of them that I would highly recommend that you read, if you have not already done so:

• "The Big Time, How the 1970's Transformed Sports in America" by Michael MacCambridge
• "When Harry Met Pablo" by Matthew Algeo
• "The Demon of Unrest" by Erik Larson
• "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
• "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White

The first four of these books are non-fiction.  "In Cold Blood" was  published in 1965, and I first read it when I was in high school.  My friend Matthew Algeo, whose name you see above, told me that he re-reads this every three or four years just to appreciate the terrific narrative writing of Truman Capote.

"Charlotte's Web" is a children's book that I read when I was in third or fourth grade.  Chance's are, you read it, too, when you were that age.  Read it again as an adult.  You will get an entirely new appreciation for it.

I have linked all of my original posts on these books to the titles above.

I wish that I would have read more in 2024, but thirty is a nice round number, and that is the number for which I will aim in '25.

Rounds of Golf

I played 17 rounds of golf in 2024, well short of the twenty-five rounds that I had hoped to play.  Some unexpected surgery last spring curtailed my play for several weeks, and some bad weather on Tuesdays also played a role.  I am going to aim for twenty-five rounds once again, but some elective surgery scheduled for June and some travel plans I'm May and September may cause me to come up short once again.  

I am just thankful that at age 73 I am still physically able to consider twenty-five rounds a year to be a reasonable number!

Pirates Games

Last year I set the goal of seeing twelve Pirates games for the season.  I ended up seeing ten, wherein the Bucs went 5-5.  I am going to shoot for twelve once again.  Why do I want to subject myself to Bob Nutting's torture chamber like this?  Chalk it up to a propensity for self-flagellation.

********

Okay, I promised three quickie Movie reviews.

This movie about two cousins on a road trip to Poland to visit the birthplace of their late grandmother has been getting some Oscar buzz.  Jesse Eisenberg directed, wrote, and stars in it, and Kieran Culkan won a golden Globe for his performance in it.  It was a good movie, not a great one.  The scene where the tourists visit a concentration camp was quite jarring and good.  Culkin's character was kind of irritating.

Two Stars from The Grandstander.

You may already know that Kieran Culkin is McCauley Culkin's younger brother, but did you know that he played Kevin's cousin Fuller in "Home Alone"?  He was the kid who always wet the bed.

This is a documentary produced and directed by actor Andrew McCarthy wherein he tracks down his fellow actors who were branded as "The Brat Pack" back in the mid-1980's when they were all in their early twenties and starring in teenage coming-of-age movies such as "St. Elmo's Fire" and "The Breakfast Club".  McCarthy got Emilio Estavez, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Mare Winningham, and Rob Lowe to speak with him.  Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson took a pass.

It was mainly a 1 hour and 40 minute self-therapy session for McCarthy.

One Star from The Grandstander.

I admit that it was the Bob Dylan biopic, "A Complete Unknown", that spurred me into checking out this 2023 documentary about Joan Baez.  I liked it.  You get to hear Joan Baez sing, see vintage clips of her with Dylan, and see how remarkably well that she has aged (she was 79 years old when this film was made).   I loved her one line when she said that she was never good with one-on-one relationships, but she was great with one-on-six thousand relationships.

For those of you under age fifty or so who have no idea who Joan Baez is, you could do a lot worse that watching this and learning about a remarkable women who was a symbol and an icon of an era.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

Steelers Requiem

Let the record show that I am writing this monograph a little over eleven hours after the debacle in Baltimore last night, and I have not read any news accounts or columns regarding the game, either (mainly because our local so-called newspaper that was delivered to my door this morning did not have any accounts of the game because it ended "late", but that's another topic entirely).  Neither have I listened to any talk radio or television bloviators, local or national, so these thoughts are my own immediate ponderings regarding the state of our favorite NFL team.

On the night of December 1, the Steelers were 10-3, had a two game lead in the AFC North, and had a shot, albeit a long and outside one, at the overall #1 seed in the AFC.  What followed was a collapse of Pirates-like proportions: four straight regular season losses and a humiliating 28-14 loss to the Ravens in the Wild Card Playoff round last night.  Don't let that final score fool you.  If you watched that first half, you know that this was way, way, WAY worse that a two score defeat.

My immediate thought is that somebody has to be held accountable for this down-the-stretch failure.  

The rabble is screaming for Mike Tomlin to be fired.  That is not going to happen, nor should it, in my opinion.  Why?  Well, Tomlin does win games (you may have heard that he has never had a losing season 😏), and despite what we have seen this December and January, that does count for something.   Also, hiring a coach is not a sure thing in the NFL.  The Steelers were either good or lucky or both in their last three hires (Noll, Cowher, Tomlin), but there is no guarantee that the next guy will be better that Mike Tomlin.  In fact, the odds are greater that the Next Guy will turn out to be a Matt Eberflus or Robert Saleh than he will be a Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, or.....Mike Tomlin.   Plus, players seem to like and respect Tomlin and want to play for him, and that should count for something, too.

All that said, some serious evaluation of the coaching staff needs to take place.  In the end, the Arthur Smith offense wasn't all that more effective than was the Matt Canada Offense, and Teryl Austin's Defense, the highest paid in the NFL, proved inadequate too, as Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry showed us all too well last night.  I'm not smart enough to comment on the performance of other assistants, but the top two lieutenants on the staff should be feeling very warm seats today.

Other off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts.....

Quarterback.  Russell Wilson started strong when he recovered from a camp injury and won six of seven games off the bat, but in the end he looked like what he is - a Hall of Fame bound QB who is 36 years old and past his prime.  Like a crafty veteran once great baseball pitcher, he can occasionally find greatness, but his best days are behind him.  Justin Fields went 4-2 in his four starts, but I'm not sure - and, again, what do I know? - that he's a long term solution.  Both guys are free agents after this season, so some big decisions need to be made by Omar Kahn and the rest of the Brain Trust in regard to the most important position on the field.  Playing in a division with Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow, this is a grim picture for the Steelers.

George Pickens.  His talent is off the charts.  Every game he plays he seems to make at least one play that makes your jaw drop.  He did it last night on the Steelers second touchdown. Then there are the off the field diva issues, and on the field bonehead plays.  He did one of those last night as well when he was called for offensive pass interference that nullified one of those spectacular catches and runs of his in the first half, a play that might have led to a score at a point in the game when it might have made a difference.

Add Pickens' name to a list that includes Mike Wallace, Martavis Bryant, Antonio Brown, Chase Claypool, and Dionte Johnson.  All good to very good receivers who were all knuckleheads to one degree or another.  Are there no guys like Hines Ward out there anymore?   In fact, Ward is currently coaching wide receivers at Arizona State.  Maybe the Steelers should bring him back to coach these guys and show them how to act.

I think that we have seen the last of Najee Harris as a Steeler.  He is a free agent, and given how fungible running backs seem to be in the modern NFL, I can't see that Steelers signing him to another deal.  He's been a solid guy at the position over the years, but he has never performed in the NFL at the same relative level that he did in college at Alabama.   To compare him to another Crimson Tide RB, he never became Derrick Henry.

There is a lot more that can be said, but I'm going to leave it at that for now.  I'm sure that I'll have more to say as the off-season for Rooney U unfolds.  Let me leave you though with these depressing thoughts that will wrap up 2024 for us Pittsburgh Sports Fans.

• At the trade deadline the Pirates were thick in the chase for a playoff spot.  There then followed a ten game losing streak in early August that led to a collapse that was awful even by the low standards that the Bucs have established for themselves in this century.
• Pitt football got off to a 7-0 start and the proceeded to lose their last five regular season games and a minor league bowl game to finish the season at 7-6
• The Penguins failed to make the NHL Playoffs last season and seem to be on their way to repeating this non-accomplishment in 2025.
• The collapse of the Steelers has been documented above.

HELP!!

To Absent Friends - Bob Veale

Former Pirates pitcher Bob Veale died earlier this week at the age of 89.  When he was in his prime with the Buccos back in the 1960's, radar guns measuring a pitcher's velocity were rare and Next Gen Stats were the stuff of science fiction, but nobody threw harder than Bob Veale.  Well, maybe Koufax and Gibson, but surely no one else had a faster fast ball than the 6'6" lefty of the Pirates.  The speed with which he threw a pitch prompted on of the all-time great lines from broadcaster Bob Prince:  "He can throw a strawberry through a locomotive."

In all, Veale pitched 14 years in the big leagues. eleven of them with the Pirates.  He had career record of 120-95, 116-91 with the Pirates, and career ERA of 3.07. He led the NL in strikeouts once and had four seasons where he notched over 200 K's.  He also led the league in walks four times, which might explain why batters were often fearful digging in against the big bespectacled Veale. He was twice an All-Star, and was a member of the Pirates 1971 World Series Championship team.  In a stretch of four seasons, 1964-67, Veale posted records of 18-12, 17-12, 16-12, and 16-8 for the Pirates. In those years his ERA were 2.74, 2.84, 3.09, and 3.31.  He started 143 games in those years with 46 complete games and 12 shut outs and averaged 254 innings pitched per season.  Would you want a guy like that on your pitching staff today?

RIP Bob Veale

Veale's death means that only twelve members of that 1971 World Series Pirates' roster are still with us.   The chart below lists that roster.  The deceased members have a black box beside their names.

	1971
Pitchers	Steve Blass
	Nelson Briles
	Dock Ellis
	Dave Guisti
	Bob Johnson
	Bruce Kison
	Bob Miller
	Bob Moose
	Bob Veale
	Luke Walker
Catchers	Manny Sanguillen
	Milt May
	Charlie Sands
Infielders	Gene Alley
	Dave Cash
	Jackie Hernandez
	Bill Mazeroski
	Jose Pagan
	Richie Hebner
	Bob Robertson
Outfielders	Roberto Clemente
	Gene Clines
	Vic Davalillo
	Al Oliver
	Willie Stargell
Manager	Danny Murtaugh
	Deceased	14
	Still With Us	12

Book Review - "Charlie Hustle"

Those who know me well would no doubt be surprised, if not amazed, to think that I would ever read, let alone purchase, a book about Pete Rose.  I have never hid my feelings about Ol' Number 14 - great ballplayer, low life human being.

So, what's the story here?

Well, last April Keith O'Brien, author of the book you see pictured here, came to Pittsburgh to address the local SABR chapter.  His address to us about the nature of his book,  the extensive research that he did to write it, plus his responses in the Q&A that followed made me actually want to read this book.  Plus, I figured that if the gentleman makes the effort to come to Pittsburgh to address forty or so SABR members, then, dammit, people should buy his book, so I did.  So did several other members as well.  It sat on my book shelf all baseball season, and I finally pulled it down last month and read it over the holidays.  I can tell you that it is a very good book.

Speaking of the Q&A, my own question to Mr O'Brien was "Did you interview Pete Rose for this book, and if  did so, did you have to pay him?" since I know that Pete would never do anything unless you paid him.  The answer was yes, he did interview Rose, and no, he didn't pay him.   O'Brien made it clear to Rose that this was work of "journalism  and history", that it would reveal all of the warts.  Rose agreed and made no effort to exert editorial control.  Beginning in 2021, O'Brien had extensive telephone and in person interviews with Rose.  He spent three days with him at Rose's home in Las Vegas, and one full day with him at a signing event n Cincinnati.  Soon after, Rose stopped returning O'Brien's phone calls and the personal interviews ended, but Pete gave enough of himself to enable O'Brien to write quite a book.

While this can be considered a biography, it is more a study  of how Rose came to be the person that he became.  His roots in a hard scrabble working class neighborhood in Cincinnati, and his striving to obtain the approval of a demanding father ("always hustle....never stop working") are fully spelled out here.   There is an interesting story about a teenaged Pete taking boxing lessons at a local gym, and getting fight in 1957 with a Cincy amateur fighter named Virgil Cole.  Cole pummeled Rose to the point that his sister feared for his bodily safety, but Pete never went down, and the story became a part of Pete's hometown legend.  Cole never spoke much of the fight, but those who knew him knew the story and when he died in 2003, he rated an obituary in the Cincy paper with the headline "He Once Bested Pete Rose."  Rose never forgot the story either, but the way he told it was that while yes, he lost, but he never went down, he never quit.  "He couldn't knock me out" was how Rose gilded that lily.

O'Brien doesn't spend a lot of time on the runs, hits, and errors of Rose's career.  Whole entire seasons are often covered in two or three pages.  Extensive coverages is given to only three "baseball events"  - the knocking down and injuring of Ray Fosse in the All-Star Game, the terrific 1975 Reds-Red Sox World Series, and the chase leading up to Rose getting hit number 4,192 to break the all-time hits record held by Ty Cobb.  The primary focus of the book, as it should be, was of Rose's gambling and the low life people that he chose to hang out.  (During his various depositions with John Dowd, Pete told him: "John, I was a horse shit selector of friends.")

The last hundred or so pages of the book documents all that went into MLB's and the FBI's investigation of Rose and his downfall.  It is unvarnished and no whitewash job.   Maybe it will allow some people to feel sympathy for Rose, but I don't think that it should.  Rose made his bed, and he slept in it right up until the day he died last last September.

I am not going to get into the should-he-or-shoudn't-he-be-in-the-HOF.  That is a  beaten to to death horse, but I will tell you three things that stood out in this book that tell you all to need about Pete Rose.

One, he had a sexual relationship with a high school girl when he was in his thirties. "She told me she was over 18" was Pete's excuse.

Two, Pete had four children to two wives.  While married to his first wife, he also fathered a child with his mistress at the time. It was a relationship that was flaunted at the time, even Karolyn Rose, his wife, knew of it.  Pete paid support money to the woman, who the author interviewed for this book, for that child, but after a few months, he quit sending her money and never acknowledged her or the child again. Throughout the book, O'Brien always mentions Pete's four kids, but never again mentions that child.  I wish that he would have followed up on that particular odious part of Rose's character.

Three, Rose bet extensively ALL THE TIME.  Multiple bets a day, and each bet for thousands of dollars.  And he lost money.  A lot of money and guess what?  He never paid his bookies for the losses.  When the curtain rang down on the Pete Rose Saga in major league baseball, guys went to jail, and several bookmakers never collected the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands that he owed them.  So in addition to everything else Pete Rose was, he was also a welcher.  The guy had no honor whatsoever.

Rose died a few months after the publication of this book, but nothing needed to be added to the story that Keith O'Brien tells in "Charlie Hustle".   Terrific book.

Three and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

The Absent Friends of 2024 - A Final Tribute

2024 was the fifteenth (!!) year that I have been pounding out these Grandstander pieces, and I have come to love the fact that one of the more popular features of this Blog has been my Absent Friends posts.   In all, I recognized 35 Absent Friends in 2024, which brought the total since I began doing this to 519.  For you trivia buffs out there, Absent Friend #500 was actress/stuntwoman Susan Backlinie, who played Chrissy Watkins, the skinny-dipper who got served up as a midnight snack to the great white shark at the beginning of the movie "Jaws" in 1975, and she is the perfect example of why I do this.

The list this year includes a very personal loss to our family caused by the passing of my mother-in-law, Yvonne "Grandma Bonnie" Mulzet.  As I wrote at the time, I only knew her for three years, but the outpouring of remembrances and love that we experienced upon her death told me that I was the one who missed out by not knowing her longer.

2024 was a tough year for sports immortals.  Seven of tis last year's Friends were/are members of various sports Halls of Fame, and that doesn't include non-HOF'ers, but still significant figures like Pete Rose, Fernando Valenzuela, Carl Erskine, and Andy Russell.   I also introduced a new category called Absent Scoundrels for people who for various reason can't be considered Friends, but whose passing bears noting.  There were two of them, O.J. Simson and Cyril Wecht,  this year.  For Rose, I just left the heading blank, because he can be considered both a Friend and a Scoundrel, depending one your point off view.

So below is a list of all those Absent Friends recognized in 2024.  If you want to see what I wrote about these folks at the time of their passing, just type their name in the Search Box at the top of this post.

NOTE: This list does not include President Jimmy Carter who died on December 29.  Holiday busy-ness prevented me from getting a chance to write my tribute to him, but earlier this afternoon, our 39th President became the first Absent Friend of 2025.

Shecky Greene

Cindy Morgan

Joyce Randolph

Melanie Safka

Charles Osgood

Andy Russell

Ed Ott

Chris Mortensen

Randy Sparks

Yvonne Mulzet, aka "Grandma Bonnie"

Larry O'Brien

Carl erskine

Roman Gabriel

O.J. Simpson

Cyril Wecht

Susan Backlinie

Bill Walton

Jerry West

Howard Fineman

Willie Mays

Donald Sutherland

Orlando Cepeda

Bobby Grier

Remo Saraceni

Bob Newhart

Johnny Gaudreau

Matthew Gaudreau

Joe Schmidt

Pete Rose

Fernando Valenzuela

Teri Garr

Quincy Jones

Elwood Edwards

Marshall Brickman

Rickey Henderson

Rest in peace, one and all.

 

To Absent Friends - Jimmy Carter

President of the United States

1977-1981

Nobel Peace Prize Recipient 2004

Lifetime Humanitarian

Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, died last week at the age of 100.  Carter had a "Former Presidency" of forty-four years, the longest in history, he lived longer than another US President, and had a marriage that lasted longer than any other President, 77 years.  These are just answers to trivia questions, though.

Carter's presidency will probably not be favorably judged by history.  It was beset with problems with inflation, domestic gasoline shortages (remember gas lines and odd/even days when you could gas up your vehicle?), and was surely done in by the Iranian Hostage Crisis.  He was denied a second term in 1980 when he was defeated by Ronald Reagan.

Few will doubt, however, that there never was and may  never be a greater "Former President" than Jimmy Carter.  Retirement for Carter and his wife, Rosslynn, who died in 2023 at the age of 96, did not consist of making speeches for six figures. Instead, he traveled the world monitoring elections in foreign countries, built homes for Habitat for Humanity (and he hands-on built them, he didn't just show up to cut ribbons), and, as he had done all of his life, he continued to teach Sunday School in hs home town of Plains, GA, and he did all of this well into his nineties.

A great President? Perhaps not, but the Presidency may never have been filled by a greater human being.

RIP, Mr. President.