When Bob Uecker was in the clubhouse and on the field during the Milwaukee Brewers’ NL Central championship celebration in September he donned a familiar hat. It wasn’t a Brewers or championship hat.
It was an ALS hat. The apparel was personal for him.
Uecker’s oldest daughter, Leann, died in 2022 from ALS, the neurodegenerative disease known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Uecker became an advocate for raising awareness following her passing.
She was the second child that Uecker lost, 10 years after his son Steve, died.
Uecker, the longtime Milwaukee Brewers radio announcer, died on Thursday at 90 years old, leaving behind two other children.
Here’s more on his family.
Who are Bob Uecker’s family?
Uecker had four children, Leann, Steve, Sue Ann and Bob Jr.
Steve died from San Joaquin Valley Fever in 2012 and Leann died from complications of ALS in 2022.
Was Bob Uecker married? Bob Uecker’s wife
Uecker was married to his first wife, Joyce, from 1956 to 1975.
His was married to his second wife, Judy, for 25 years until their divorce in 2001.
Judy and Uecker remained close. She was with Uecker when he celebrated with the Brewers last season at American Family Field and in his final days, as one of his “Mr. Belvedere” co-stars mentioned in a social media post when she visited Uecker in recent weeks in Wisconsin.
Bob Uecker’s daughter passed away in 2022
Bob Uecker’s oldest daughter, Leann “Lee” Uecker Ziemer, died on March 11, 2022, three years after being diagnosed with ALS.
Many know ALS as Lou Gehrig’s disease, named after the Hall of Fame baseball player in the 1920s and 1930s who died from the incurable neuromuscular illness.
Uecker talked about his daughter with the Journal Sentinel before the 2022 season and the toll the disease took on her.
“It’s a debilitating disease that slowly eats away at you,” he said. “To try and talk to people who have it, they can’t talk when it gets to that point. They deteriorate, and there’s nothing you can do. Keep them comfortable.”
Uecker moved Leann from Cedarburg near his Menomonee Falls condo so he could be closer to her.
“The really sad part of that whole thing as (her death) got closer was she kept talking about dying,” Uecker said. “She’d send me texts about dying. Which, how do you answer those? You don’t (know how).”
Bob Uecker’s son Steve died from San Joaquin Valley Fever
Ten years earlier, Uecker lost his first child. Steve died from complications of San Joaquin Valley Fever. He was a cowboy in California.
His death came on opening day in 2012.
“Went to him at the hospital then drove down to Chicago to do the game,” Uecker told the Journal Sentinel. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”
Valley fever is a lung infection caused by breathing in spores from the fungus Coccidioides, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Protection.
