MILWAUKEE — Bob Uecker, the voice of his hometown Milwaukee Brewers who after a short playing career earned the moniker “Mr. Baseball” and honors from the Hall of Fame, has died. He was 90.

The team announced Uecker died Thursday morning, calling it “one of the most difficult days in Milwaukee Brewers history.” In a statement released by the club, Uecker’s family said he had battled small cell lung cancer since early 2023.

“Even in the face of this challenge, his enthusiasm for life was always present, never allowing his spirit to falter,” the family said.

“It is his kindness, humility, and love for family and friends that we will hold closest to our hearts”

– The Uecker Family pic.twitter.com/lggU2BdOSw

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) January 16, 2025

Our statement on the passing of Bob Uecker: pic.twitter.com/OGbzM8QL11

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) January 16, 2025

“Bob was the genuine item: always the funniest person in any room he was in, and always an outstanding ambassador for our National Pastime,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “We are grateful for this baseball life like no other, and we will never forget him. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my deepest sympathy to Bob’s family, his many friends across the game, Brewers fans, and the countless baseball fans who admired him.”

Uecker was best known as a colorful comedian and broadcaster who earned his nickname during one of his numerous appearances on Johnny Carson’s late-night show.

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Uecker was a beloved member of the baseball community and a pillar of the sport in Wisconsin.

When the Brewers clinched the NL Central title in 2024, manager Pat Murphy threw an arm around Uecker in the locker room, pulling him in tight as players white-knuckled their corks, ready to shower him in champagne.

“There is no one — there is no one — who epitomizes a champion the way this man does right here,” Murphy proclaimed as the players chanted “UUUUUECK.”

“What an example for us to be with every single day — Bob Uecker.”

Uecker signed his first professional contract with the Milwaukee Braves in 1956 and reached the majors in 1962. He’d last six seasons in the big leagues as a backup catcher, finishing with a .200 average and 14 homers.

He won a World Series ring with St. Louis in 1964 and also played for Atlanta and Philadelphia.

“Career highlights? I had two,” he often joked. “I got an intentional walk from Sandy Koufax, and I got out of a rundown against the Mets.”

Uecker also befriended former Brewers owner and MLB commissioner Bud Selig, who initially hired him as a scout. Selig liked to joke about how Uecker’s initial scouting report was stained with mashed potatoes and gravy.

Selig eventually brought Uecker to the broadcast booth. Uecker became the voice of the Brewers in 1971, in the second year after the team moved from Seattle.

Uecker remained with the club from that point on and became one of the Brewers’ most indelible figures. Brewers manager Craig Counsell grew up in the Milwaukee area and remembered spending summer days throwing a baseball against the roof and catching it while listening to Uecker’s broadcasts.

“There’s no single person in this franchise’s history who has been as iconic and as important as Bob Uecker,” said Jeff Levering, a member of the Brewers’ broadcast team since 2015.

Even as his celebrity status grew nationwide, Uecker savored the opportunity to continue calling games to fans in his hometown.

“To be able to do a game each and every day throughout the summer and talk to people every day at 6:30 for a night game, you become part of people’s families,” Uecker once said. “I know that because I get mail from people that tell me that. That’s part of the reward for being here, just to be recognized by the way you talk, the way you describe a game, whatever.”

Uecker was honored by the Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award in 2003 and spent nearly 20 minutes keeping the Cooperstown, New York, crowd of about 18,000 in stitches.

“I still — and this is not sour grapes by any means — still think I should have gone in as a player,” he quipped.

“Ueck” got his big break off the field after opening for Don Rickles at Al Hirt’s nightclub in Atlanta in 1969. That performance caught Hirt’s attention, and the musician set him up to appear on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson. He became one of Carson’s favorite guests, making more than 100 appearances.

Carson was the one who dubbed Uecker “Mr. Baseball.” And the name stuck.

But Uecker’s comedy was just a part of his abilities. His warm storytelling and delivery made him a natural to become one of the first color commentators on network TV broadcasts in the 1970s with ABC. In the ’90s, he teamed up with Bob Costas and Joe Morgan for the World Series.

From there, Uecker reached most households as one of the Miller Lite All-Stars in popular commercials for the beer brand based out of Milwaukee and he later launched his TV acting career in 1985 on the ABC sitcom, “Mr. Belvedere.”

Uecker played George Owens during the successful 122-episode run of the series that lasted six years, as the head of the family and sportswriter in a home that brings in a butler who struggles to adapt to an American household.

In a bit of casting that kept things pretty close to home, Uecker also played a prominent role in the movies “Major League” (1989) and “Major League II” (1994) as crass announcer Harry Doyle for a down-and-out Cleveland franchise that finds a way to become playoff contenders.

“I’m part of American folklore, I guess,” Uecker told The Associated Press in 2003. “But I’m not a Hollywood guy. Baseball and broadcasting are in my blood.”

His wry description of a badly wayward pitch — “Juuuust a bit outside!” — in the movie is still often-repeated by announcers and fans at ballparks all over.

Uecker’s acting left some to believe he was more about being funny than a serious baseball announcer, but his tenure and observations with the Brewers were spot on, especially when games were tight. Equally enjoyable were games that weren’t, when Uecker would tell stories about other major leaguers, his own career and his hobbies as an avid fisherman and golfer.

“I don’t think anyone wants to hear somebody screwing around when you got a good game going,” Uecker said. “I think people see ‘Major League’ and they think Harry Doyle and figure that’s what Bob Uecker does. I do that sometimes, I do. But when we’ve got a good game going, I don’t mess around.”

In his later years, he took a serious approach to his health, swimming daily leading up to heart surgery in April 2010. Very soon after the procedures, doctors said Uecker returned to walking several miles and was ahead in recovery.

Uecker pushed to return to the booth and began calling games again in July, saying he bribed the doctors by allowing them to throw out the first pitch.

“You talk about all the things Bob has done, he never wanted to leave Milwaukee,” Selig said. “Above all, he made himself into a great play-by-play announcer. That’s what he did. He’s everything to this franchise and loves every minute of it.”

Uecker’s own career provided him most of his material. His former teammates said Uecker would do impressions of other broadcasters on the bus, but Uecker turned the spotlight on himself after his playing career was over.

“I signed with the Milwaukee Braves for $3,000. That bothered my dad at the time because he didn’t have that kind of dough,” he said. “But he eventually scraped it up.”

Another classic: “When I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the ninth, I looked in the other team’s dugout and they were already in street clothes.”

Uecker also presided over the stirring ceremony that closed Milwaukee County Stadium in 2000. When the Brewers’ new stadium opened as Miller Park in 2001, the team began selling “Uecker Seats” high in the upper deck and obstructed for a $1.

The stadium, now known as American Family Field, has two statues in Uecker’s honor. There’s a statue outside the stadium and another one in the back of Section 422, a nod to the Miller Lite commercial in which he famously said, “I must be in the front row!” while getting taken to one of the worst seats in the ballpark.

After the Brewers were eliminated from the playoffs in 2024, Uecker’s last season, he made sure to visit the locker room and offer support to players in a way only he could.

“That was kind of tough. All the other stuff, it is what it is. … Talking to Ukie, one on one, was tough,” outfielder Christian Yelich said at the time. “He means a lot. He means a lot. I’ve gotten to know him pretty good over the last seven years. … He’s right over there. Just a great guy, a great guy.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jack Hoffman, the young Nebraska football fan who ran for a touchdown during the 2013 Cornhuskers’ spring game and became a catalyst for pediatric brain cancer fundraising, died Wednesday after a 14-year battle with cancer, according to the Team Jack Foundation. He was 19.

Hoffman was diagnosed with a cancerous glioma when he was 5. Doctors told the family that most of his golf ball-size tumor could not be removed. But his father, Andy Hoffman, did exhaustive research and found a doctor in Boston who extracted more than 90% of the tumor.

Jack’s favorite player was Nebraska running back Rex Burkhead, and before the surgery, Andy reached out to Nebraska hoping his son could meet him. Burkhead had lunch with Hoffman and raced him on the field, and the family forged an enduring friendship with the former NFL back.

In late 2011, when the Cornhuskers trailed Ohio State by three touchdowns, Burkhead fired up some of his teammates by mentioning the inspirational boy he’d just met. “Hey, Jack wouldn’t give up,” he told them, “so why should we?” Nebraska rallied, and Burkhead scored the game-winning touchdown.

A year and a half later, in April 2013, Nebraska’s coaches decided to put Jack in a spring game. Wearing an ill-fitting helmet that bounced as he ran, Jack, who was then 7, ran for a 69-yard touchdown as 60,000 fans roared. Video of the play garnered more than 10 million views on YouTube.

Hoffman went to Washington to meet President Barack Obama and won an ESPY award for the best moment in sports. Known simply as “The Run,” the moment helped Hoffman’s dad launch the Team Jack Foundation. The venture, started in tiny Atkinson, Nebraska — population 1,245 — has raised more than $14 million to aid pediatric brain cancer research.

In 2020, Andy Hoffman was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive brain cancer. He died less than a year later. In ESPN interviews with the family in September 2020, Bri Hoffman, Jack’s mom, said their hope for Jack was to keep the tumor at bay as long as they could.

“For kids and tumors,” she said, “what [doctors] told us is if you can keep it from growing until they reach like their 20s, a lot of times they just go away.”

With the help of clinical trials, and despite the seizures that could come at any time, Jack Hoffman was able to do things that seemed unimaginable in 2011. He went to homecoming and was a lineman for his high school football team in Atkinson. He went tubing, boating and fishing and played tug-of-war with his dog, Roxy. He cheered on his Nebraska Cornhuskers.

But brain scans in 2023 revealed tumor progression and he underwent a tumor resection surgery in summer 2024. Pathology results eventually revealed that his tumor had advanced to a high-grade glioma, “which is extremely rare,” according to the Team Jack website.

After receiving 30 radiation treatments, Hoffman began his freshman year at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in the pre-law program this past fall. He wanted to be a lawyer, like his dad.

In a statement Wednesday, the university called Hoffman “a valued member of our Loper community” and noted he earned a spot on the dean’s list this past semester.

“Jack was widely admired across Nebraska and beyond for his courageous spirit and dedication to raising awareness about childhood cancer through the Team Jack Foundation,” the school’s statement read. “We extend our heartfelt condolences to Jack’s family, friends and all those whose lives he touched. His connection to the UNK community was meaningful, and his impact will not be forgotten. We are grateful for the time he shared with us.”

In a CaringBridge post from December, Bri Hoffman said that it was “heartbreaking” to email Jack’s professors to let them know he couldn’t take his finals because he was too sick.

“He has worked very hard this semester,” she wrote.

In an interview with ESPN in 2020, Hoffman said he had no idea “The Run” would be such a big deal. He thought it was just going to be in front of a few people and was scared when he realized it wasn’t. But he changed into an oversize pair of old football pants, and his dad took him out onto the field. Hoffman wasn’t sure where the touchdown line was, so Andy told him to keep going until he hit the fence.

Hoffman held on to that advice when he dealt with unknowns.

“If you don’t know it,” he said, “just run until you hit the fence.”

MARIETTA, Ga. — Bo Jackson is giving up a $21 million judgment against his niece and nephew, who the former football and baseball star said harassed and tried to extort money from him.

A judge in February ruled in Jackson’s favor in the lawsuit he had filed in April 2023 against Thomas Lee Anderson and Erica M. Anderson, also known as Erica Anderson Ross.

Jackson, who won the Heisman Trophy as an Auburn running back and also played in the NFL and in MLB, had alleged in his lawsuit that his relatives tried to extort $20 million from him through harassment and intimidation.

In addition to the monetary award, last year’s ruling included a permanent protective order barring his niece and nephew from bothering or contacting him and his immediate family. It also said they must stay at least 500 yards from the Jacksons and remove social media posts about them.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Jason D. Marbutt said in his February order that neither Jackson’s niece and nephew nor their attorneys rebutted Jackson’s claims or participated in the case after a May 2023 hearing, when they consented to a temporary protective order. The judge found the Andersons to be in default, accepting as true all of Jackson’s allegations.

After that ruling was issued, a new lawyer for the Andersons filed a motion in March to set aside that judgment and to dismiss the lawsuit, according to court filings. In a filing Tuesday, Jackson and the Andersons jointly asked the judge to throw out February’s order, withdraw the Andersons’ pending motions and enter a consent judgment.

“In the meantime, the Parties have conducted two mediations and have reached a private agreement resolving this dispute,” the filing says.

Marbutt on Wednesday issued an order vacating his February ruling at the request of Jackson and his niece and nephew.

That consent judgment finds in Jackson’s favor on several counts and dismisses others, awards no damages to Jackson or to his niece and nephew, and says the parties shall pay their own attorneys’ fees. It also says the Andersons must not harass or intimidate Jackson and his wife and children and must stay 500 yards away from them except in certain circumstances, including court appearances, sporting events and family functions. The Andersons are also not to have any contact with Jackson and his wife and children.

Jackson, 62, had alleged that the harassment began in 2022 and included threatening social media posts and messages and public allegations that put him in a false light. He also alleged that public disclosure of private information was intended to cause him severe emotional distress. With the help of an attorney, the Andersons demanded $20 million to stop. Jackson said he feared for his own safety and that of his family.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.