Yelich pays tribute to Uecker after finally leading Brewers to their first World Series title

By STEVE MEGARGEE, AP

Like so many Milwaukee fans, Christian Yelich took a moment while celebrating the Brewers’ first World Series title to remember a man he wished had been around to see it.

“Uecky, I love you, man,” Yelich said in reference to beloved Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker, who died in January 2025 at the age of 90. “We did it.”

Yelich’s tribute after the Brewers' 4-1 Game 5 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays recalled a dramatically different postgame setting two years earlier, when Milwaukee couldn’t hang on to a 2-0 ninth-inning lead and fell to the New York Mets in the decisive game of an NL Wild Card Series.

That would be the last game in the broadcasting career of Uecker, who had been calling games through the 2023 and 2024 seasons while battling small cell lung cancer. Uecker had kept that information private up until his death and shared it only with a select group of people, including Yelich.

Uecker capped his game broadcast that night by saying, “That one had some sting on it,” then went into a silent locker room and offered condolences to the Brewers players, a moment that was detailed in a documentary on Uecker that came out this year. Yelich struggled to contain his emotions that night as he discussed the hardest part of having a season end that way.

“For me, it was talking to Ueck,” Yelich said at the time. “That’s kind of a tough one. All the other stuff, it is what it is. It’s a tough way for your season to end, but talking to Uecky one on one, it was tough.”

That made Wednesday’s moment all the more cathartic for Yelich, who has been with the Brewers through all their celebrations and commiserations over the last several years as the franchise had its greatest run of sustained success.

The guy who was named the first captain in franchise history last month accepted congratulations on the field from Hall of Fame shortstop Robin Yount, regarded as the Brewers’ greatest player ever. Yount had been an MVP in 1982 when the Brewers made their only previous World Series appearance. He praised Yelich for helping the Brewers finally get it done.

Yelich, 34, and pitcher Brandon Woodruff are the only players who have been with the Brewers since they began their run of eight playoff berths in nine seasons in 2018. They’d been through plenty of heartache as the Brewers struggled to translate their regular-season success into the postseason.

“All those low moments, you don’t realize at the time, but those low moments prepare you for this moment,” Yelich said. “Without those, this wouldn’t be possible. It doesn’t feel like it in the moment sometimes when it’s happening to you, when you’re in those lows. It can be tough at times, but it makes you tougher. There’s lessons to be learned from it, and it’s all geared towards moments like this. Man, is it worth it.”

The Brewers acquired Yelich before the 2018 season, and he went on to become the NL MVP that year as Milwaukee reached Game 7 of the NL Championship Series. He was contending for another MVP award the following year before fracturing his kneecap, the first in a series of injuries he would battle through over the last several years.

Even though Yelich is no longer the Brewers’ best player, he remains the face of the franchise in many respects.

“I don’t think all of them were clear enough on what it was going to take,” manager Pat Murphy said. “Yeli kept speaking it into existence. He kept saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’re going to win the World Series,’ and everybody kind of snapped their head like, ‘You believe that? Did you see us play last week?’ That type of thing.”

Yelich wasn’t merely leading in the clubhouse. He also was delivering a postseason breakthrough on the field while bouncing back from a regular season in which he posted career lows in on-base percentage (.315) and OPS (.692).

He drove in two runs in Game 2 of the NLCS as the Brewers swept the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

In the World Series, Yelich hit a first-inning RBI triple to put Milwaukee ahead for good in a 3-2 Game 1 win, and he went 2 for 3 with a walk and an RBI in the Brewers’ 10-1 Game 3 blowout victory. He scored one of the Brewers’ four runs in the Game 5 clincher Wednesday.

Now he’s finally a World Series champion. He could only wonder what Uecker would have been thinking.

“He’s smiling, man,” Yelich said. “He’s smiling. I really wish he could have been here to see this. That would have meant everything to him. But like we said a bunch, he’s been with us a lot. We keep him close to our hearts. This one’s still for Bob.”

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