McKinven, Kasper and Hawk share their memories of Ueck

This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin's White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CHICAGO -- Walker McKinven, Len Kasper and Ken “Hawk” Harrelson are three of the myriad White Sox-connected people who grew to know and love Bob Uecker, the baseball and entertainment icon who passed away at 90 on Thursday.

Their respective descriptions of the beloved voice of the Brewers, although all expressed with varied and entertaining stories, truly captured Uecker’s amazing essence. He was truly gifted across a wide variety of platforms. He was one of a kind. And, maybe most important and consistently voiced, he exuded fun.

“I’ll tell you what, he’s the funniest guy in baseball I ever knew,” Harrelson, the fellow Ford C. Frick Award winner, told me of Uecker, whom he knew for more than 60 years. “We had a great relationship.”

“When I think of Bob, I think of literally the funniest human being I’ve ever met,” said Kasper. “Nobody made me laugh harder than Bob on and off the air.”

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: He is the funniest person I’ve ever been around,” McKinven told me on Thursday. “He’s the quickest thinker that I’ve been around.”

McKinven, the White Sox new bench coach under manager Will Venable, joined the Brewers in 2016 and served in a variety of roles before being added to the Major League coaching staff in 2020. He went one step further with his characterization of Uecker as the most talented individual he had known.

“I was around some of the most talented athletes in the world every single day, and this man probably trumps them all in terms of pure talent,” McKinven said. “New stories daily. You bring something up to him, and he would have a quick response. We all know about the self-deprecation thing, and that plays. People like that, and he nailed it.”

Kasper attended Marquette University from 1989 to 1993 and was a frequent visitor to County Stadium during his college days. In 1994 he was hired by WTMJ, the Brewers’ flagship station, as the host of the station's daily sports show. He worked there until 2002, when he was hired for the Marlins’ television play-by-play job.

During his time at WTMJ, Kasper -- now the White Sox radio voice -- got to know and interview Uecker, and watch him work his craft, even getting to do a couple of games with him in 2001. Kasper’s wife, Pam, reminded him on Thursday that when the Brewers were in Florida early during his run, Uecker warmly greeted the Kasper family, pulled out a $10 bill and handed it to Leo, their then-2-year-old son.

“Leo was thinking, ‘Do I eat this? I don’t know what to do with this,’” Kasper said with a laugh. “But that was Bob.”

Harrelson considers Uecker one of the best broadcasters to ever work, along with Cleveland’s Tom Hamilton and Don Drysdale, his one-time broadcast partner with the White Sox, a close friend and the individual who really connected him with Uecker.

This Harrelson/Uecker bond leads to my memorable encounter with “Mr. Baseball.”

It was June 1, 2018, and it was the year Harrelson was retiring. The Brewers were in Chicago, so I went over pregame to talk with Uecker about his friend.

Once he came into the visitors’ dugout, I introduced myself and told him what I needed. Mr. Uecker paused, and with a completely straight face said, “I don’t know Hawk. I know Andre Dawson. He’s the Hawk. I can tell you many stories about him.”

I laughed nervously.

“No, seriously, I really don’t know Hawk. But I can tell you all about Andre Dawson, the Hawk,” Uecker continued. “We can do that.”

At that point I laughed again, a bit out of confusion, thanked him and said while Andre Dawson was the best, I didn’t really need quotes about him. I politely excused myself, but he grabbed my arm before I could take off.

“Of course I know Hawk,” he said with a big smile. “What do you need?”

He talked to me for about 10 minutes. This will be my 24th year covering baseball, and that might be my favorite career moment.

“You never left a conversation without laughing,” McKinven said. “You never left without being just amazed at the talent and the wit and the kindness that this human being exuded.”

“Johnny Carson loved him. He was on over 100 times,” added Harrelson of Uecker’s numerous “Tonight Show” appearances. “And for him to go on Johnny Carson that often, you know he had to be good. He was something special.”

“The Bob you saw on the air was the Bob I saw off the air. That’s who he was,” Kasper said. “Just the little smirk, and you knew the line was coming. And nobody could deliver it the way Bob did. … I could talk about Bob for hours.”