Celebrating Tone Madison‘s 10th anniversary with some highlights from the past decade.

Tone Madison turned 10 years old in 2024. To mark a decade of our fiercely independent, reader-supported coverage of culture and politics in Madison, we’re continuing to revisit some highlights from our archives. Got a favorite Tone Madison story you think we should include? Let us know by sending an email to editor@tonemadison.com. 

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“Because of Bob Uecker, the games are way more fun on the radio than they are on TV. In Madison, they’re on WOZN, 1670 AM or 96.7 FM. […] Uecker is a connection to an earlier time in baseball—when the sport was far more popular, when ballplayers were public figures even non-fans could name, when everyone listened on the radio.”

—Jane Burns

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The 2025 regular MLB season will mark the first without Brewers broadcasting legend Bob Uecker—who helmed the radio booth from 1971 through 2024—following his death in January. Although I did not grow up in the Midwest a fan of the American-turned-National League team, Jane Burns did, as she illustrated in her charming Microtones essay from 2021, which celebrated Uecker’s mellifluous vocal presence.

In her writing from four years ago, Burns detailed the TV-broadcasting debacle instigated by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, and what drove her and other Brewers fans to the (amusingly hypnagogic) comforts of AM radio. (Hey, you should’ve grown up listening to the interminably soft-spoken Jim Palmer’s colorless commentary for Baltimore Orioles games on HTS in the mid-1990s. That’d put you to sleep real quick.)

While Burns and I don’t share a common regional knowledge and memories of a favorite roster, we certainly share a history of baseball being a “gateway sport.” It’s the only one I really attempted to play until I abandoned that quest in junior high school. Maintaining a stable relationship with my father in my youth was always a challenge, too, but we could bond over practicing pitch-and-hit with my brother at a baseball field down the road. On other days, we’d watch an Orioles game on a weeknight, while my dad jammed quietly on an unamplified electric guitar behind me.

That ’90s era of the Orioles is one to forget in terms of consecutive losing records, but it is striking in many other ways that were unquestionably enhanced by those folks calling the play-by-play on any given night (Mel Proctor was the main HTS guy back then). Whether it’s simply relaying the stats, saying the right thing in the spirit of sportsmanship, or interweaving a wildly tangential personal project into the game’s narrative—like Uecker seamlessly toggling between talking about planting a garden and keeping track of the pitch count—the micro-dramas in America’s pastime pair especially well with a broadcast, more so than any other sport I can think of. And that’s true whether you’re turning a game on to unwind (and nap) or dropping in for a broadcaster’s yarns told over the crowd’s cozy ambient murmurs and cheers.

—Grant Phipps, Film Editor

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Take me home to the ball game

Cable and streaming company headaches lead Wisconsin baseball fanatics back to broadcasting basics.

Originally published May 21, 2021.

At the beginning of April, legions of people were sent scurrying in a panic to find that dusty radio they hadn’t used in ages. That panic wasn’t launched by the start of tornado season; it was because it was the start of baseball season.

Season openers generally don’t launch a panic unless you’re a New York Mets fan. But it wasn’t until that moment that many Milwaukee Brewers fans discovered they couldn’t watch their team on TV, making them just the latest would-be viewers left in the dark as the spats between TV networks and providers have clearly traveled from cable to streaming.

In 2019, Sinclair Broadcasting Group acquired the 21 regional Fox sports networks that included Fox Sports Wisconsin. FSW had been on most cable, satellite and streaming services and was previously where local sports fans could watch Brewers and Milwaukee Bucks games. This spring Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has a way of making everything it touches worse, rebranded FSW as Bally Sports Wisconsin and couldn’t reach an agreement with anyone covering the network except most cable providers, DirecTV and only one streaming service—AT&T TV—which with its sports package costs $84.99 a month. Streaming services are the only providers that aren’t shedding subscribers, but those subscribers are getting to experience all the things that made them flee cable and satellite.

Sports is an easy hostage for TV providers. It’s the only remaining consistent must-see money-making live TV. If you absolutely must watch that sportsball game, providers pretty much have you by the nose hairs to pay up and/or put together an Excel spreadsheet to see which service carries which channels for which sports. And it’s only going to get worse. God only knows where one might find the Olympics this summer if they actually happen. 

I would imagine there are a lot of sports fans like me who have simply waved the white flag. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Brewers fan and it’s pretty much what would be on in the evenings and definitely Sunday afternoons if I’m home. Baseball was the first sport I loved, my gateway sport, and I’ve come back around to it over the years. That’s not necessarily for its history or the inflated mythology and romanticism that surrounds it, but because I rather like a sport I can take a nap to.

That nap actually goes better with radio than TV anyway. The shift is a good reminder of what Brewers fans have known for, oh, about 50 years: Because of Bob Uecker, the games are way more fun on the radio than they are on TV. In Madison, they’re on WOZN, 1670 AM or 96.7 FM.

Baseball and radio already go together like pedal pubs and drunk bachelorettes. The announcers aren’t screaming all the time and drawing all over your television screen. You’re not stuck watching endless replays and there is never, ever a mention of a Cover-2 or a nickel package.

Beyond that, Uecker has entertained Brewers fans since 1971. He doesn’t work every game, and he doesn’t work every inning—hey, the guy is 87 years old. Most baseball announcers have the skill of talking about something else—a previous game, roster moves, details about a player—while calling the game—but Uecker long ago elevated that to an art form. A couple years ago I was listening in my car and was lucky to hear an exchange that went something like this:

And it went on from there.

Uecker is a connection to an earlier time in baseball—when the sport was far more popular, when ballplayers were public figures even non-fans could name, when everyone listened on the radio. Sadly Uecker won’t be around forever, and a slice of Wisconsin entertainment will, like baseball’s popularity, fade away.

In the meantime I’ll chop up some jicama, toss it in a lovely salad, tune in to the Brewers on the radio, and listen to the musical sound of a ball on a bat and Uecker’s goofy stories.

I’m already looking forward to the nap.