By Bill Trott

(Reuters) – Bob Uecker, whose self-deprecating wit helped him parlay a mediocre baseball career into stardom as a broadcaster, actor and pitchman for beer from his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, died on Thursday at age 90, the Milwaukee Brewers said.

Uecker, who observed his 50th anniversary in 2021 of calling Brewers games in his hometown, became a beloved figure in the city with two statues of him at the stadium. His family said he had been battling lung cancer.

Uecker used to frequently joke about his own six years as a journeyman major league player. His wit made a much greater impact than his bat and catcher’s mitt, and he led the league in laughs. “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson nicknamed him “Mr. Baseball” and had him on NBC TV’s nationwide late-night show some 100 times after he retired as a player.

The ads that Uecker filmed for Miller Lite beer in the 1970s and ’80s became fixtures during breaks in televised sports events. The ads made him a nationwide celebrity, fame he parlayed into other acting jobs including a role on the TV sitcom “Mr. Belvedere (WA:)” and the three Hollywood “Major League” movies.

Commissioner of Major League Baseball Rob Manfred called Uecker “one of the game’s most beloved figures throughout his 70-year career in baseball.” He noted that during 54 years of broadcasting games, “Bob’s trademark wit became a staple of television and movies. Even with his considerable success in Hollywood, Bob remained fiercely loyal to baseball and to Milwaukee.”

Manfred said Uecker was “the genuine item: always the funniest person in any room he was in, and always an outstanding ambassador for our National Pastime.”

Uecker, or “Uke” as he was known, joked that his hitting slumps lasted into the winter and sports equipment companies paid him not to endorse their products. The only way he could catch a pitcher’s elusive knuckleball, he said, was to wait for it to stop rolling.

Sports Illustrated once called him “baseball’s loveable schnook.” Still, even as his fame grew as an entertainer, he remained devoted to baseball.

“Bob became incredibly popular, incredibly recognizable, but his favorite environment was always the clubhouse,” said Brewers Hall of Famer Paul Molitor. “He never changed. With everything that came his way, he never forgot his roots.”

Uecker was born Jan. 26, 1934, and was a high school baseball star. But in the major leagues, he was never more than a backup catcher.

His big-league career started in 1962 with the Milwaukee Braves and lasted only six seasons. He played on a World Series champion with the St. Louis Cardinals, as well as with the Philadelphia Phillies before ending his career with the Braves after they had moved to Atlanta.

He was a good defensive catcher but his career batting average was a dreadful .200, with only 14 home runs and 74 runs batted in.

“Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues,” Uecker wrote in his memoir, “Catcher in the Wry.” “To last as long as I did with the skills I had, with the numbers I produced, was a triumph of the human spirit.”

After the Braves moved to Atlanta, Milwaukee was without a major league team until the Seattle Pilots moved there and became the Brewers in 1970. Uecker joined the Milwaukee Brewers radio broadcast team in 1971 and took acting jobs on the side.

His beer commercials in the 1970s brought him into America’s living rooms as a garrulous but somewhat dense version of himself, completely lacking self-awareness.

‘THE FRONT ROWWWW’

In one commercial he boasts about his fame allowing him to get priority seating at games just before a stadium usher tells him he’s in the wrong place and has to move. He crows that he will probably be escorted to “the front rowwww” but in the next shot is seen sitting alone in the upper reaches of the stadium, yelling at an umpire.

In 1985 he was cast in the TV sitcom “Mr. Belvedere,” playing sportswriter/sportscaster George Owens, who has a testy relationship with his butler.

Uecker had a key role in the “Major League” movies – a comic trilogy starting in 1989 about a team of baseball misfits. Uecker played faithful broadcaster Harry Doyle, who tried to put the best face on the team’s atrocious performances, such as the time he proclaimed a pitcher’s wildly errant throw as “juuuust a bit outside.”

Uecker, who was married twice, also worked six years on ABC’s Monday night baseball games, hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1984 and starred on “Bob Uecker’s Wacky World of Sports,” a compilation of sports bloopers and skits in the 1980s.

“I loved doing all that other stuff but baseball is No. 1,” Uecker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2019. “Always has been and always will be.”

As a broadcaster, Uecker was so popular in Milwaukee that the Brewers’ stadium now has two statues of him – one standing outside and another seated in the upper reaches of the stadium as an homage to his “front rowwww” commercial. The second statue includes an unoccupied seat next to Uecker so fans can get a selfie sitting next to the statue.

Brewers players took the rare step of giving Uecker a player’s bonus of $123,000 when the team qualified for the playoffs in 2018. Uecker donated the money to charities. That same season they paid tribute to him one day by dressing in the plaid sports coats and loud shirts that Uecker was known for wearing.

In recent years Uecker had cut back on his broadcast schedule and worked mostly home games. During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, he had to do his broadcast work remotely as he and other nonplayers were denied access to the ballpark under the health protocols MLB put in place.

After the 2020 season ended, Uecker signed his first-ever contract with the Brewers, ending a half century of handshake deals with the team. The reason was health insurance. The Screen Actors Guild had discontinued his benefits so he signed a contract with the Brewers to get on the team’s insurance plan.

As the 2021 season began, Uecker, then 87 years old, had received a COVID vaccination, and said it felt great to be back at the ballpark.

“It’s amazing how you take everything for granted,” he told the MLB.com website. “Being down there on the field, shooting the bull. Then when you can’t do it, it’s bad. You really lose that.”

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser said on Thursday the new administration will keep TikTok alive in the United States if there is a viable deal.

“We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark,” U.S. Representative Mike Waltz told Fox News. He noted that the law gives authority for a 90-day extension for the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to complete a divestiture. This is the case, said Waltz, “as long as a viable deal is on the table. Essentially that buys President Trump time to keep TikTok going.”

TikTok is used by more than 170 million Americans monthly.

The New York Times (NYSE:) reported on Thursday that Trump is considering an executive order that would seek to allow TikTok to continue operating despite a pending legal ban until new owners are found. It was not immediately clear if Trump has the authority to do so given the legal divestiture requirements imposed by Congress.

A group of U.S. lawmakers is also pushing for a 270-day extension as well, warning that a ban could hurt Americans who make a living from using TikTok.

TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for the Trump transition, Karoline Leavitt, said, “President Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to save TikTok, and there’s no better deal maker than Donald Trump.”

Reuters reported that TikTok plans to shut U.S. operations of its social media app used by 170 million Americans on Sunday, when a federal ban is set to take effect, barring a last-minute reprieve, according to people familiar with the matter.

A White House official told Reuters on Wednesday that President Joe Biden has no plans to intervene to block a ban in his final days in office if the U.S. Supreme Court fails to act. The official added that Biden is legally unable to intervene absent a credible plan from ByteDance to divest TikTok.

The law signed in April mandates a ban on new TikTok downloads on Apple (NASDAQ:) or Google (NASDAQ:) app stores if ByteDance fails to divest the site.

Users who have downloaded TikTok would theoretically still be able to use the app, but the law also bars U.S. companies from providing services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of it once any ban begins.

The president can issue a one-time, 90-day delay to the ban if he certifies to Congress there has been evidence of significant progress and there are binding legal agreements in place to allow a complete divestiture in three months.

Separately, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to attend the U.S. presidential inauguration on Jan. 20 and sit among high-profile guests invited by Trump, a source told Reuters.

Representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, criticized the decision to invite Chew on social media platform X.

“Trump talks a big game on China & wanted to ban TikTok—just like many Republicans voted to do,” Pallone said. “But now he’s inviting TikTok’s CEO to sit beside him at his inauguration even though TikTok is linked to the CCP & is a threat to our national security. What message does this send?”

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to uphold the law and allow TikTok to be banned on Sunday, overturn the law, or pause the law to give the court more time to make a decision.

Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock (NYSE:) and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees own 20% each. It has more than 7,000 employees in the United States.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–UBS announced today its collaboration with Engle Volatility Consulting LLC (Engle Consulting), the research principal of which is Nobel Laureate Dr. Robert F. Engle, on a methodology for a series of volatility controlled indices. The series uses rules-based systematic investment strategies that aim to provide enhanced exposure to various underlying assets using a novel forward-looking intraday volatility forecasting methodology developed with Dr. Engle.

The first of the index series will aim at improving the risk-return profile of major benchmark equity indices in order to serve the increasing demand in retirement products and help investors achieve their financial goals.

Ghali El-Boukfaoui, Head of Insurance Sales at UBS Investment Bank, said: We are excited to collaborate with Dr. Engle to bring this innovation to the retirement market. Volatility control methodologies have, for the longest time, been overlooked from an innovation standpoint and we take the view that a good volatility forecasting method can lead to enhanced performance.

El-Boukfaoui adds: Dr. Engle has spent his career solving for the volatility forecasting problem as an indicator for price actions, and the goal of our collaboration is to bring an innovation that positively impacts the financial outcome of investors.

The heart of a good volatility-control mechanism is a good forecast of volatility, said Dr. Robert Engle. These indices are designed to give investors exposure to benchmarks with a competitive risk-return profile by applying an innovative forward-looking intraday volatility control based on a volatility forecasting model.

The model is based on Dr. Engle’s research and aims at producing a more reactive intraday allocation mechanism that can rapidly adapt to changing market conditions and more accurately predict volatility by using a variation of the ARCH model.

For more information please visit https://indices.ubs.com/engle

About UBS

UBS is a leading global asset manager and the leading universal bank in Switzerland. In addition, the company offers diversified wealth management solutions and focused investment banking functions. With the acquisition of Credit Suisse, UBS has assets under management of $5.7 trillion as of the fourth quarter of 2023. UBS supports its clients in achieving their financial goals through personalized advice, solutions and products. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, the company operates in more than 50 markets around the globe. UBS Group AG (NYSE:) shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

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This material is for distribution only under such circumstances as may be permitted by applicable law. It has not been prepared with regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of any specific recipient. It is published solely for informational purposes and is not to be construed as a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments or to participate in any particular trading strategy. Options, derivative products and futures are not suitable for all investors, and trading in these instruments is considered risky. The recipient should not construe the contents of this material as legal, tax, accounting, regulatory, or other specialist or technical advice or services or investment advice or a personal recommendation. Foreign currency rates of exchange may adversely affect the value, price or income of any security or related instrument mentioned in this material. No representation or warranty, either express or implied, is provided in relation to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the information contained herein except with respect to information concerning UBS AG, its subsidiaries and affiliates (“UBS”), nor is it intended to be a complete statement or summary of the securities markets or developments referred to in this material or a guarantee that the services described herein comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations. It should not be regarded by recipients as a substitute for the exercise of their own judgment. Any opinions expressed in this material are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by other business areas or groups of UBS as a result of using different assumptions and criteria. UBS is under no obligation to update or keep current the information contained herein, and past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. UBS, its directors, officers, employees or clients may have or have had interest or long or short positions in the securities or other financial instruments referred to herein and may at any time make purchases and/or sales in them as principal or agent. UBS may act or have acted as market-maker in the securities or other financial instruments discussed in this material. Furthermore, UBS may have or have had a relationship with or may provide or have provided investment banking, capital markets and/or other financial services to the relevant companies. Neither UBS nor any of its directors, officers, employees or agents accepts any liability for any loss or damage arising out of the use of all or any part of this material or reliance upon any information contained herein. Additional information may be made available upon request. Not all products or services described herein are available in all jurisdictions and clients wishing to effect transactions should contact their local sales representative for further information and availability. © UBS 2025. All rights reserved.

Engle Consulting is not an investment adviser, does not guarantee the accuracy and completeness of any index in the index series described herein or any data or methodology either included therein or upon which it is based. The indices are not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Engle Consulting or Robert F. Engle. Engle Consulting and Robert F. Engle do not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, to any financial institution, investor of or counterparties to any index or to any member of the public regarding the advisability of investing in securities generally or in any of the indices.

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Source: UBS