Reusse: There’s only one Bob Uecker — forever a baseball funnyman and Milwaukee’s famous ‘cheeser’

Paul Molitor came to the Brewers as a rookie infielder in 1978 and stayed for 15 seasons — for the glory, for the downturn, but always with Uecker being on the field and the clubhouse before a game.

“In those early years, Ueck still was throwing batting practice,” Molitor said. “In spring training in Arizona, he’d be there in uniform at 7:30 in the morning, and always threw the first round of hitting.

“We also flew a lot of commercial flights back then. The team would get on first, then the other passengers came on. It was never, ‘Hey, there’s Rollie Fingers, there’s Robin Yount,’ it was always, ‘There’s Ueck. We love ya, Ueck.’ ”

Molitor said, in his view, Uecker had the best quality a celebrity meeting people could ask for: “He didn’t have to work at being funny. He was naturally comedic.”

Uecker was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame for his excellence in broadcasting in 2003. Haudricourt put it this way: “Ueck was the absolute master of self-deprecation. I was in Cooperstown when he got the Ford Frick Award. They said to him, ‘You have 10 minutes.’ Ueck said, ‘I need 20.’

“And all those old Hall of Famers up there, the guys who come back every year and can’t stand long speeches … they were rolling in the aisles, tears rolling down their faces, elbowing each other in the ribs.”