RIP Bob Uecker

He was America's favorite underachiever.  An athlete who embodied the joys of being lost in the team, but with a grin.  A professional baseball player who made a lasting impact by perpetually mocking his own career legacy and himself.  A man who taught the world the value of laughing louder at yourself than anyone else. 

When I was in high school, he was a legend, more than you'd think from those crazy, hazy days of the 1980s.  I don't know how many millions of times, when we would shift around in an auditorium or on the gym bleachers or move around in a classroom, you'd invariably hear someone say 'I must be in the Front Row!'  Even as young and foolish teens, we saw the value in a man who had that sense of self deprecation, but not in a passive aggressive way of avoiding confrontation.  

Truth be told, he was better than he suggested.  Sometimes the better ones are able to be silly with their own reputations because they know the truth.  He was with St. Louis when the won the World Series,  and would also play with the Braves and Phillies.  

Adopting the moniker 'Mr. Baseball', his career as an announcer for the Brewers, and as a comedian (the "Comic Bard of Baseball") surpassed anything he did on the diamond.  But it was his lampooning of himself - and by extension, most professional athletes or celebrities with an inflated opinion of themselves - that I remember the best. And that endeared him to a generation of young Americans sometimes given the choice by our modern society of greatness or nothingness.  

May he receive from God a portion of the blessings, and a little of the laughter, that he gave to so many of us. 

"When I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the ninth, I looked in the other team's dugout and they were already in street clothes."

"How do you catch a knuckleball?  You wait until it stops rolling, then go pick it up."

"Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products."

"I spent three of the best years of my life in 10th grade."

"I didn't get a lot of awards as a player.  But they did have a Bob Uecker Day Off for me once in Philly."

Bob Uecker, RIP.