Brewers' broadcaster Bob Uecker survives venomous spider bite, continues to cheat death

PHOENIX – Bob Uecker is one tough, old buzzard.

And that is meant in the most complimentary and respectful of ways.

Uecker, who turned 84 in January, has survived more than one life-threatening medical scare during his Hall of Fame career as the Milwaukee Brewers' radio voice. Accordingly, he wasn’t going to let a little thing like a spider bite get in the way of returning to the booth for a 48th season in 2018.

Actually, this wasn’t a little spider bite. It was a bite by a brown recluse spider, one of the most venomous house spiders in the United States.

Last October, only a few weeks after the Brewers were eliminated from the playoff race on the penultimate day of the 2017 season, Uecker was in the backyard of his home in nearby Scottsdale, replacing a burned-out bulb in a light fixture.

“I had a pair of shorts on,” he said. “I got bit by a spider but I didn’t know it. I didn’t feel it bite me. The next day, I had a red mark on my leg, and it kept getting bigger. I kept trying to take care of it by myself but it kept getting worse.”

On the fourth day, Uecker went to see his doctor for some regularly scheduled blood work and showed him the ugly, growing wound on his left leg, near the knee.

“He said, ‘You need to go to the hospital. That’s a brown recluse spider bite. That’s bad,’ ” recalled Uecker. “He knew right away.”

The next thing he knew, Uecker was having surgery.

The doctor cut away the infected flesh at the site of the bite, which if left untreated often results in necrosis and other painful, dangerous side effects. The surgical site was kept open afterward, which wasn’t a pretty sight. Uecker has photos of it in his cellphone if you want to really get grossed out.

“It has to heal from the inside out, so they left it open,” Uecker said. “That took five weeks. I couldn’t believe it. Then, they told me I had a MRSA problem (a bacterial infection from the wound that is difficult to treat with regular antibiotics). So, they put me on a different medication for the next three weeks.

“I’m fine now. What really bothered me is it kept me out of swimming from several weeks. Normally, I swim every day.”

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Not surprisingly, Uecker and broadcast partner Jeff Levering have joked about the incident on the air while broadcasting Brewers exhibition games this spring. If you know Uecker, he can poke fun at practically anything, especially if it comes at his expense. Few topics are off limits, much to the delight of devoted listeners.

“We were laughing about it on the air,” he said. “I said the spider didn’t ‘recluse’ himself from biting me. That was a good one.”

Though painful and a bit scary, that spider bite didn’t compare to other serious medical issues Uecker was fortunate to survive over the years. In more than one, luck played a vital role in early diagnoses that made the difference between life and death.

During the 1991 season, when Uecker pitched a round of batting practice before games every day to keep himself in shape, he began experiencing lower back pain. He ignored it for a period of time but when he began having trouble lifting his front leg to throw a pitch, he consulted a team doctor.

An MRI was performed on Uecker’s lower back, but that became a secondary issue when the scan revealed something much more serious. Uecker had developed an aortal aneurysm in his abdominal area, a bubble in the body’s largest blood-carrying vessel leading from the heart that could burst at any time. Ruptured aneurysms of that type are almost always fatal, with the person bleeding out in a matter of minutes.

Uecker, who was 57 at the time, underwent a three-hour operation at Sinai Samaritan Medical Center during which the bubble was cut out and replaced with a plastic graft. A mere five weeks later, he was back in the booth, calling Brewers games. No stopping “Mr. Baseball” from doing what he loves most.

That episode was not Uecker’s last life-threatening medical scare. After the 2009 season, he began experiencing chest discomfort and shortness of breath and underwent tests that revealed a leaking aortic valve. The doctor told Uecker the heart condition would have to be addressed at some point.

But, once again, a scan performed to identify one health issue discovered something more serious.

“The next day, they told me to come to the cancer center,” Uecker said. “They found tumors on the back of my pancreas. It was a good thing they found them early.”

That January, with no revelation to his listening public, Uecker underwent surgery to remove his pancreas. Had the issue gone undetected, he could have developed pancreatic cancer, a fatal condition for more than 90% of diagnosed patients. Uecker has had to inject himself daily with insulin ever since, a small price to pay considering the alternative.

But Uecker wasn’t out of the woods yet. That April, while calling a game with broadcast partner Cory Provus at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs, he blacked out at the microphone.

“This is how dumb things happen,” Uecker said. “(Chicago’s) Ryan Theriot is the hitter. All of a sudden, I go blank for about 20 seconds. I can’t see but I keep talking. (Producer) Kent (Sommerfeld) was there and Cory Provus. My sight comes back and we keep going.”

Uecker’s leaky heart valve had worsened, and there was no putting it off this time. Surgery was scheduled for April 30 at Froedtert Hospital to replace it, and the Brewers called a news conference at Miller Park in which Uecker announced he’d be leaving the booth for an undetermined period of time.

Remarkably, Uecker was back calling games in July, seemingly no worse for wear.

But, unbeknownst to him, a much more serious situation was developing in the area of the valve replacement. A staph infection formed, causing a tear in the new valve, and in October another surgery was performed to repair that damage.

The doctors, the Brewers and Uecker never made a big deal of it publicly, but those close to him were told staph infections in or around the heart can be life-threatening.

Once again, Uecker cheated death and returned to the radio booth for the 2011 season, in time to watch his beloved Brewers win their first NL Central crown and make it all the way to the NLCS before being eliminated by eventual World Series champion St. Louis.

“That was bad,” Uecker conceded. “When I got the staph infection, they were worried. I couldn’t believe we had to do it again. They say those valves are good for 10 years, so we’ll see what happens.

“I know I’m lucky. I’ve had 11 major surgeries overall. But, through all of that stuff, I made some unbelievable friends. All those doctors at Froedtert. We’re all friends now. So, a lot of good came out of it.

“What are you going to do? You have to do what they say. Those guys saved my life. They put you under and that’s all you know.”

Serious health issues couldn’t stop Uecker from calling Brewers games, but advanced age finally got him to slow down a bit, albeit reluctantly. Bit by bit over the past couple of years, he has reduced his travel schedule to the point of only calling 20 or so games away from Miller Park. Uecker still works every home game, which he considers non-negotiable.

“I’ll probably do the same, about 100 games,” said Uecker, about to begin his 63rd year in baseball, including the quite modest playing career that still serves as a fulcrum for his self-deprecating brand of humor.

“I’ll still do a few games on the road. Some places, I miss. Over that amount of time, you meet a lot of people and make a lot of friends. But doing 100 games, that’s enough.”

Those who still consider listening to Uecker the only way to follow Brewers baseball from afar would tell you that he hasn’t lost much, if any, velocity on his verbal fastball. Levering, entering his third season working with the Milwaukee icon (and fourth overall with the club), marvels at how hair-trigger sharp and witty Uecker remains as an octogenarian.

“The hardest thing I had to do was learn the levels of his stories, because there are so many different levels,” said Levering, who works road games with Lane Grindle in Uecker’s absence.

“Even if I know the punch line, I let him tell it because nobody delivers a line like Bob does. He is a true entertainer, he really is. There’s nobody quite like him. He’s as in shape mentally at 84 as anybody I’ve ever seen, at any age.

“Bob Uecker was Howard Stern before Howard Stern was Howard Stern. Why do people listen to Howard Stern? Because they want to know what he’s going to say next. Bob is the same way. If the game is close, he’s all baseball. But if the game is not close, it becomes ‘Fireside Chat with Ueck.’

"He finds a way to shine those rocks. He really does.”

Following the tradition started with former team owner Bud Selig, Uecker continues to work without a contract for Mark Attanasio, who bought the club in 2005. Uecker swears he doesn’t even know what his exact salary is.

“I’ve never had a contract,” Uecker said. “They call it a handshake agreement, but we don’t even do that. We don’t say anything. Mark takes care of everything. It’s just understood I’m coming back. We don’t have to say it.”

Ask Uecker how much longer he’s going to do this and he always gives the same answer. As long as he’s physically capable and mentally sharp enough to continue, he will. He has no intention of being a doddering fool in the booth who didn’t realize when it was time to exit.

“I’ll know when it’s time,” he said. “I would never embarrass myself or the club. I have a standard.”

It’s one that no else could match, and one that serious health issues never had a chance of derailing for long.

Tough, old buzzards continue to fly.