Bob Uecker's Family Tells Milwaukee 'Let's Win Our Way' as the Brewers Reach the World Series

The letter Milwaukee had been waiting 44 years to read arrived on Wednesday, and it was missing its author. The Brewers released a statement from the family of Bob Uecker, two days before Game 1 of the World Series, the franchise’s first since 1982. Uecker broadcast Brewers baseball for 54 years and died on January 16, 2025, at 90, less than two years before the team finally got back. The family wrote the note the whole run has been circling: pride in the team, and longing for the man who should have been calling it.

What did the Uecker family actually say?

The statement, released by the club and published in full by FOX6, opens with a line aimed at every fan who sat through the lean decades: “Some moments are worth waiting for. Generations of Brewers fans have held hope in their hearts, season after season, that someday this city would have its chance at another championship. That day has come.” It then says the quiet part plainly. “We are filled with elation and pride, but also longing. A wish that Bob was here to see it, too.” The family is careful about speaking for him: “While we could never speak for him, this is certain: Milwaukee, the Brewers, and the fans meant everything to Bob. Wherever we gather, in a packed stadium, a neighborhood bar, or a living room with the radio turned all the way up, we know he’s right here cheering alongside us.” The letter works through the whole building before it closes. It thanks the Attanasio family, addresses Pat Murphy and the coaching staff, the broadcast team that inherited Uecker’s booth, and the fans, who “kept Bob’s spirit alive, through a laugh, a story, a cold beer, or a favorite call”.

What did the family say to the players?

The players get the line that will travel furthest. “Bob would have been so incredibly proud of what you’ve accomplished,” the letter tells them, crediting a group that “believed in each other and the power of friendship” and “carried the city with you every time you took the field”. These Brewers earned the note the hard way, sweeping the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, a run our coverage of the pennant and Murphy’s clubhouse followed as it built. The sign-off is written to be chanted back: “Milwaukee, let’s get loud, let’s do this together, let’s win OUR way!”

How has the club kept Uecker in this run?

By refusing to celebrate without him. Manager Pat Murphy has read playful letters from Uecker to the team during the October clubhouse celebrations, and when the pennant was won he stopped to say what the room was feeling: “He’d be so happy for the guys. Those who knew him well are all thinking about Ueck today.” Murphy, whose own October has mixed the emotional with the profane, as our report on his live-interview moment with Jackson Merrill shows, has treated Uecker as a member of the staff rather than a memory. The physical reminders are permanent. One statue stands outside American Family Field; a second sits in the back row of the upper deck behind home plate, the joke on his famous “I must be in the front row” commercial line. Downtown, a mural of Uecker runs 80 feet wide and 100 feet high.

Why does this World Series carry a wait like this one?

Because the franchise has been here once in its life. The 1982 Brewers, an American League team then, lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, and the 44 years since produced contenders, collapses and long stretches of neither. Uecker called almost all of it, working through the 2023 and 2024 seasons while battling small cell lung cancer, the last of his 54 years in the booth. The fan side of this week has its own paper trail, from the Timeless Ticket holders who finally kept their World Series seats to a Rays pitcher who is guaranteed a ring either way. The family’s letter sits above all of it because it names the person the week is really about.

What happens on Friday?

Game 1 is Friday night at American Family Field, Milwaukee against Tampa Bay, whose own pennant run is covered in our report on Freddy Peralta facing his old club. Whatever the club stages for Uecker around first pitch, the family has already given the series its frame: a packed stadium, a neighborhood bar, a living room with the radio turned all the way up. The voice on that radio will be somebody else for the first time in a World Series. The letter is Milwaukee’s way of saying he is in the booth anyway.