4th Base honors ‘Major League,’ County Stadium, Bob Uecker

Caleb Westphal hasn’t missed a Friday fish fry since 2013. Follow his never-ending adventures—sponsored by Miller High Life—HERE. This week, fish fry #587 at 4th Base in West Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

On October 5, 2018, days after the Milwaukee Brewers won the National League Central division, and shortly after they took the field for game two of their eventual sweep of the Rockies in the National League Division Series, I got into my car and turned on Uecker. After grabbing a twelver of Sharp’s at Oklahoma Liquor and a fish fry at Ray’s Butcher Shoppe, I drove to Dana Court, a seldom-used street next to a strip club where we parked for Brewers games as a kid—a spot where we ate cold sandwiches in a van before we climbed below the bridge, walked between cemeteries, climbed through the snipped bottom of a chain-link fence, plopped ourselves onto the walkway above, and trekked the rest of the way to County Stadium.

It was at this spot on Dana Court that I ate my Ray’s Butcher Shoppe fish fry as mosquitoes ate me, while I listened to Uecker call the game on a portable radio. The mosquitos were so bad—I can feel them now six-and-a-half years later—that I got back into my car as soon as I was done eating. As I drove home, I later recounted, “Uecker was on the car radio in the background, the rhythm of his voice following the rhythm of the game, just as it had when I was a kid climbing through fences and sitting in the bleachers of County Stadium.”

2018

Bob Uecker was a throughline between the childhood memory and the 2018 account, just as he has been a throughline in life. Now, I’ve never followed Major League Baseball or the Brewers too closely. I can scarcely name a player on the team, nor keep my focus for too long when I’m at the ballpark. But Uecker? He’s like another genre of music. Is that jazz you are listening to? No, it’s Uecker. But he was like jazz: he had the space between notes, the rhythm, the timelessness. I would put him on from time to time, just as much to hear that voice—that music—as to learn what was happening with the game.

Shortly after Bob Uecker died in January, I watched Major League. I was reminded that not only was County Stadium featured in the film, but so was 4th Base, a bar and restaurant in West Milwaukee that has been open since 1977 (5117 W. National Ave.; 414-647-8509). Once I found out they had a Friday fish fry, I knew I had to go, and decided to go on March 28, the Friday between the season opener and the home opener. Milwaukee Record had covered 4th Base before, but never for a fish fry and not since Uecker passed away. What’s more, Major League was released on April 7, 1989, the Friday before Opening Day of the 1989 season, and I’d be getting a fish fry at 4th Base on the Friday before Opening Day of the 2025 season.

I took a seat at the horseshoe bar, just to the left of where Neil Flynn pounds on the bar in the film. The bartender told me there weren’t any paper menus, and gestured towards the made-to-order kitchen and display case on the other side of the bar, suggesting I could find more details there. But I pressed, asking if there was a fish fry. I already knew the answer, having looked online in advance, and if I would have scanned the room I also would have seen “fish fry” listed on a display board with other food items. The bartender told me the options were perch or walleye, either deep fried or pan fried, with the side choices of homemade french fries or onion rings. It wasn’t listed anywhere, but the price for each fish fry was $24. I ordered the deep-fried perch with french fries.

There wasn’t much time to study the sports pictures, jerseys, and other decorations attached to the walls and ceiling—including the new “Remembering Mr. Baseball” T-shirts hanging on each side of a large Uecker photograph—because the food came out so quickly. There was a lot on a small plate—or should I say small base—namely, six pieces of perch on top of a mini mound of fries, and a cup each of slaw and tartar. There was no bread, not that there was room for it, nor room for ketchup to put with the fries. This base was loaded.

The slaw hit with a piquant punch, the cabbage overwhelming the few dissenting ingredients into submission, ensuring uniformity of flavor throughout. The french fries were the type that go with anything. Not particularly crisp, yet well-cooked, they had the advantage of at least being homemade, and were topped with fresh parsley and grated parmesan.

Taken together, the perch, its breading, and the tartar made for satisfactory fried fish. What the parts lacked on their own they made up for together. Call it tasty tripartite symbiosis, call it what you will, but maybe don’t think about it too much and just eat it. The perch was of medium size and medium flavor, with more firmness than flakiness. It was sealed over with a thick, sheath-like breading, made by hand and mixed with Italian seasoning, which although rather understated in flavor, aligned well with the fresh parsley and grated parmesan, which topped the fish just as it did the fries. The mayo-based tartar was extra tangy with the right amount of relish.

“You can step up here if you want,” the bartender informed me, after I made some failed attempts to capture a camera shot of the bar similar to that found in Major League. I still didn’t get it just right, so take another look at Matt Wild’s article on 4th Base to get a better perspective. As I stepped down and got ready to walk out of the building, the bartender handed me a 2025 Brewers schedule and a stack of 4th Base stickers, one saying “famously known as the bar in the movie Major League.”

But I knew the night couldn’t end there. Not while being less than a mile from American Family Field. Not on the Friday before the first Opening Day without Ueck. Not after eating a fish fry in the bar featured in Major League, a film released the Friday before Opening Day, and the film where Ueck delivered the legendary line “Just a bit outside!” So I started walking.

Heading east on National Avenue, I turned towards the ballpark after passing the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. An under-construction sidewalk forced me to walk in the grass, and there I was again, taking a rogue route to the Home of the Brewers, just as I had all those years before. It was the day after my 39th birthday, but in my mind I was 11. The sun and a breezy and balmy 74-degree air enveloped me, a fish fry settled within, and I felt alive, the world’s endless tightening of the screws momentarily forgotten.

Then there I was, standing alone, with no one else in sight, myself and the statue of Bob Uecker. To the north was my past, at the bridge on Dana Court, just beyond the slowed Friday traffic on Highway 94, and also a bit closer, at Helfaer Field, where County Stadium once stood, where I watched the Brewers as a kid and where Major League was filmed. To the south was my future, a walk back to the vehicle and another Friday fish fry over. But this was the present, the culmination of a new pilgrimage to the ballpark for new reasons. While his statue remains, Uecker is gone. But if you listen real hard, you can hear the voice, you can hear the music, just as I did there. It’s a little bit like jazz.

Takeaways: Location of the bar scene in Major League; coleslaw of uniformity, made with dissent quashing cabbage; homemade french fries that could go with anything; thick, sheath-like, and rather mild Italian breading covering some medium-mannered perch; extra tangy tartar; the fish and fries are topped with parsley and parmesan; provides opportunity to get a Friday fish fry before walking to a Brewers game—if you want to do it, these are the Friday home games for the 2025 season: April 4 (tonight), April 18, May 2, May 16, June 6, June 13, June 27, July 11, July 25, August 8, August 22, September 12, and September 26.