ST. PETERSBURG -- Cooper Pratt connected, the Milwaukee faithful on hand at Tropicana Field erupted and FOX play-by-play man Joe Davis began a familiar call.
“Hitting a high drive! Deep left field!” Davis said. “Get up, get up, gone!”
Pratt’s go-ahead home run in the 12th inning of Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night (and Wednesday morning) was one of the most epic moments in Brewers postseason history, a potential World Series clincher. And Davis, who has been calling the Fall Classic since 2022, chose that moment to honor the late Hall of Fame Brewers radio voice, Bob Uecker.
Uecker’s signature home run call is right there in lights at Milwaukee’s American Family Field: “Get up, get up, get outta here, gone!”
“I’m a huge broadcast nerd and always have been, ever since I was a kid dreaming of doing this job,” Davis said after emerging from his Game 5 pregame meeting with Brewers manager Pat Murphy. “Ueck is obviously a guy that you grew up listening to and was underrated because he was such a comic genius that his ability to master the craft and be an amazing play-by-play announcer didn’t get enough love. I say that to say I was always studying him and listening to him, and just by osmosis, that stuff is in there.”
Davis was still broadcasting Minor League games when he first met Uecker. He had an invitation to use a spare broadcast booth at then-Miller Park to practice play-by-play.
“It was a chance to get big league tape,” Davis said. “I had my computer, my little sound board I could plug in and get that demo tape to be able to show big league front offices, ‘This is what I sound like at a big league game.’
“I met Ueck at a couple of those, and he right away made me feel like I belonged in a press box. And I’m just this 23-year-old kid who had no idea what I was doing.”
His homage in Game 4 was a chance to repay the favor.