On June 6, 1967, the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies completed a trade and swapped backup catchers; it was Gene Oliver straight up for Bob Uecker. Even though I started following baseball in 1966, before Uecker joined the Braves, I’m not sure I was aware he even existed.

The blurb in the Nashville Tennessean on the morning after the deal didn’t offer much explanation for the trade. The notice simply said of Oliver and Uecker, “Both are 32 years old and both have been second string receivers since coming to the majors.”

In my younger days, I was not a fan of trades; I still don’t care much for the whole concept. But trading one backup backstop for another one just didn’t make sense to me. Besides, I liked Oliver, a player with four home runs on his 1966 Strat-O-Matic card.

It turned out the Braves needed a catcher who could handle the knuckleball or at least do a better job of it than their regular catcher, Joe Torre. In 1967 knuckleballer Phil Niekro was off to such a good start coming out of the bullpen that the Braves wanted to move him into the starting rotation. In his first 24 relief appearances, Niekro was 1-2 with a 1.73 earned run average, but his knuckleball was giving Torre fits.

Passed balls led to both of Niekro’s losses, and by the time the Braves traded for Uecker, Torre already had eight passed balls on the season, six by way of the Niekro knuckler.

With Uecker behind the plate, Niekro made his first start a week after the trade and pitched a two-hit shutout against the Phillies. Niekro was on his way. He went on to lead the National League with a 1.87 earned run average that year, finished his career over 20 years later with 318 wins, 245 complete games, 45 shutouts, and went into the Hall of Fame in 1997.

Uecker finished his career as player with 14 home runs and a .200 batting average, but he did have a few highlights. He hit three of his homers off pitchers who eventually wound up in the Hall of Fame: Sandy Koufax, Gaylord Perry, and Ferguson Jenkins. Uecker also received an intentional walk from Koufax.

After his playing days, Uecker joined Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson in the broadcast booth for some of the Braves games. Late in 1971, the Milwaukee Brewers hired him as their play-by-play announcer, a gig that lasted 53 years.

Uecker is famous for his role as Harry Doyle in the Major League movies where he delivered his signature line “JUST a bit outside.” And he was a natural in the Miller Lite beer commercials, where in 1984 he boldly stated, “I must be in the front row!” when the usher gave him the bum’s rush from the box seats. Uecker starred for six seasons on the sitcom Mr. Belvedere, and according to his biography on the SABR BioProject, he made close to 100 appearances on The Tonight Show, where he famously told Johnny Carson, “The easiest way to catch it (the knuckleball) was to wait until it stopped rolling and just pick it up.”

It would be an understatement to say that, as a player, Uecker was nothing special. His résumé on the International Movie Database (IMDb) is more impressive than anything you will find on Baseball Reference, Baseball Almanac, or Retrosheet. However, in 2003 he was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually to a broadcaster.

Bob Uecker passed away last week. He was 90 years old.