Back in 2017, the Milwaukee Brewers released one of the finest fan giveaways in the history of baseball: a Bob Uecker-themed magic 8-ball. Just ask the plastic ball a question, flip it over, and read the answer printed on a 10-sided die floating in a bubble of mysterious blue liquid. It was novel, it was Uecker, and it was a nice break from the 17th bobblehead of Robin Yount’s 3,000th hit or whatever.
We consulted the Uecker 8-Ball a couple of times in 2017, asking it questions about the changing face of Milwaukee’s East Side (lol) and Von Trier’s plans to remain a German bar and restaurant (lol again). In 2023, we actually asked it some baseball-related questions. “Will the Brewers, you know, be good this year?” we asked. “SURE, WHY NOT?” replied the ball. The Brewers finished the regular season 92-70. They were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL Wild Card Series. Accurate, we suppose.
A lot has changed since 2023. The Brewers have a new manager (Pat Murphy). The Brewers have new players (like, all of them, except Christian Yelich). The Brewers are better than ever (103-59 in the regular season, 5-1 so far in the postseason). Sadly, however, Uecker has passed. So what truths could a nine-year-old plastic 8-ball reveal today?
Let’s find out! Yes, we still have the Uecker 8-Ball. It’s been spending the past few years in our makeshift Uecker shrine, tucked next to some Uecker bobbleheads, a Uecker nesting doll we use to measure snow, a Deep Thought bobbleboat, and a totally sweet Nightblood letter opener. You know, the sword Vasher has in Warbreaker, before Szeth gets it in Words Of Radiance.
Unfortunately, the Uecker 8-Ball has lost some of its juice—literally. Maybe an eighth of the mysterious blue liquid has evaporated. Thus, the 10-sided die doesn’t float to the top, butt up against the plastic window, and properly display one of its sides/answers. Thus, pretty much every shake ends up like this:
As we prepared for this article, shake after shake resulted in the same garbled mess of nothing/everything. It looked like the Uecker 8-Ball’s days were numbered. But then, like a cry from the heavens, one answer (kinda-sorta) presented itself:
“SWING FOR THE FENCES.” You know what? Enough said. We’ll take it—both literally and figuratively. The Brewers should absolutely swing for the fences while at bat (while continuing to play their winning brand of Brewers baseball). The Brewers should absolutely “swing for the fences” during the postseason in general. And Brewers fans, like Pete McDermott said last week, should absolutely go “all in.”
So yeah, let’s SWING FOR THE FENCES. Tonight’s game is going to be great. The rest of the series is going to be great. The series beyond that is going to be great. GO BREWERS!
Oh, here are the questions we were going to ask the Uecker 8-Ball:
Q: Will Robert Gasser go at least four innings?
Q: Will Shohei Ohtani’s slump continue?
Q: Will the Brewers face an early 1- or 2-run deficit, only to come from behind, answer every run scored against them, and eventually win the thing by a run or two just like they have 8,000 times this postseason?
Q: Will Marlins Man be sitting next to Mary Hart behind home plate?
Q: Will the camera operators spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on celebrities at the game instead of the game itself?
Q: Will Randy Newman’s satirical “I Love L.A.” be played as the broadcast cuts to commercial at some point?
Q: Will Milwaukee continue to complain about the “bias” of the national announcers even though, come on guys, they’re totally fine, and anyway you can just listen to the Brewers radio announcers if it bugs you so much?
Q: Will Uecker and/or Vin Scully be referenced at any point in the game?
Q: Will traffic to our recent SEO-friendly story on Front Row Amy—which, you know, actually contained some new and semi-scandalous information—continue to plummet while the series is played in L.A.?
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