Get up, get up, get outta here: Bob Uecker’s picture will hang on a wall near you
Pioneers from many fields look down from the walls of hallways and conference rooms across the CALS campus — William Dempster Hoard, Harry Steenbock and Stephen Babcock to name a few. Now they’re about to be joined by an icon of the world of baseball. A portrait of Bob Uecker, famously lousy catcher, sometime actor and long-time voice of the Milwaukee Brewers, will be hung on a wall in the UW Meat Science Laboratory as one of three 2010 inductees of the Wisconsin Meat Industry Hall of Fame (the other two are Dennis Vignieri of Kenosha Beef International/Birchwood Foods and Russ Wenzel of Wenzel Farm Sausages).
Uecker has never stuffed a spicy pork mix into a sausage casing or run a firm that does that, but when it comes to speaking up for meat, he has few equals. It’s a rare inning where he doesn’t wax eloquent on the virtuals of a sponsor’s sausage or urge listeners to fire up their grill to fry the cut of their choice. That’s what’s earned has him a spot alongside such barons of baloney as Patrick Cudahy, Fred Usinger and two Oscar Mayers. For more on the Meat Industry Hall of Fame, go here.