Bob Uecker, the clubhouse joker who turned stories of his inferiority as a major league catcher into a comic narrative that enlivened his second career as a sportscaster and commercial pitcher, died Thursday. He was 90.

His family announced the death in a statement released by the Milwaukee Brewers, saying he had been treated for small cell lung cancer since early 2023. The statement did not say where he died.

Uecker proved unremarkable during his six seasons as a major league player in the 1960s. He achieved a career batting average of just .197, hit 14 home runs and drove in 74 runs. As a career reserve player, he never started more than 62 games per season for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves, the St. Louis Cardinals or the Philadelphia Phillies.

“It was a triumph of the human spirit to last so long with the abilities I possessed,” Uecker wrote in “Catcher in the Wry” (1982), his memoir with Mickey Herskowitz.

He told self-deprecating stories—some true, some not—as if he had played baseball just to gather material for a standup comedy act.

“I was named minor league player of the year once,” he said. “Unfortunately, I had already been a major for two years by then.”

But Uecker’s deep knowledge of the game, gained primarily in the dugout and in the bullpen, was evident in his radio broadcasts for the Brewers, where he began as a play-by-play voice in 1971.

Uecker was popular in Milwaukee, but he was known nationally for his comic turns in the popular Miller Lite beer advertising campaign in the 1980s and his role as Harry Doyle, the fictional voice of the former Cleveland Indians, in the comic book film “Major League.” (1989).

The Miller Lite commercials revolved around the debate over whether the low-calorie beer tasted good or was less filling and featured many sports stars.

In his most famous commercial, Uecker fought his way into a box seat in a baseball stadium. But when an usher interrupted him and said he was in the wrong seat, Uecker replied, “Oh, I have to be in the front row!” Instead, he was led to a seat in a remote part of the stadium.

“Good seats, huh, buddy?” he shouted amidst a sea of ​​empty seats.

The sight of Uecker from such a distance became so much a part of his image that in 2014 a statue of him was erected in the distance of the upper deck of Brewers Stadium.

In addition to hosting Brewers games for 54 years, he also worked as an analyst for ABC Sports on its Monday Night Baseball franchise in 1976, where he remained until 1982.

A full obituary will appear shortly.