Broadcasting career
After retiring as a player, Uecker became a broadcaster, starting with WSB-TV in Atlanta. In 1971, he began calling play-by-play for the Milwaukee Brewers' radio broadcasts. Uecker's tenure as a Brewers broadcaster for 54 seasons was the second-longest continuous tenure with one team among active Major League Baseball announcers prior to his death, trailing only Kansas City Royals broadcaster Denny Matthews (1969–present).
In the baseball off-season Uecker was the radio color commentator for University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Panthers men's basketball and football games carried by WTMJ (620) and WTMJ-FM (1130) in the early 1970s.
During his Brewers tenure, Uecker mentored Pat Hughes, Jim Powell, Cory Provus and Joe Block, all of whom became primary radio announcers for other MLB teams. He also called the 1982 World Series locally for the Brewers on WISN (1130) in Milwaukee.
For several years he also served as a color commentator for network television broadcasts of Major League Baseball, helping call games for ABC in the 1970s and early 1980s and NBC (teaming with Bob Costas and Joe Morgan) in the 1990s. During that time, he was a commentator for several All-Star Games, League Championship Series and World Series.
At NBC, Uecker was a color commentator for the 1994 and 1996 All-Star Games, 1995 and 1996 American League Championship Series, 1997 National League Championship Series, and the 1995 and 1997 World Series. Uecker left NBC before he got a chance to call the 1998 All-Star Game from Coors Field in Denver, Colorado. Uecker underwent a back operation in which four discs were replaced. For the remainder of NBC's contract (1998–2000), only Bob Costas and Joe Morgan called the games.
He was well known for saying his catchphrase "Get up! Get up! Get outta here! Gone!" when a Brewers player hit a home run.
In 2014, Uecker cut back on his workload, limiting the number of road games he would call and traveling he would undertake, due to prior health issues.
Prior to the 2021 season, Uecker had never signed an official written contract with the Brewers to do the team's play-by-play, instead agreeing to do so via an undisclosed number of handshake agreements with either Bud Selig or Mark Attanasio, the owners of the team. He signed a contract in 2021, in order to be covered under the Brewers' health insurance plan after cuts to his SAG-AFTRA benefits for acting work.
From 2022 to 2024, Uecker teamed with Jeff Levering and Lane Grindle to call Brewers home games and road games in Chicago on WTMJ in Milwaukee and the Brewers Radio Network throughout Wisconsin.
Uecker's final broadcast was Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and New York Mets on October 3, 2024.
