Reality A Bit Outside What Uecker Imagined

In further proof that life imitates art, Harry Doyle - er, Bob Uecker - was behind the broadcast microphone Tuesday night for the first World Series game in Cleveland since 1954.

“I AM Harry Doyle here,” Uecker said at his hotel before Game 3 between the Indians and the Atlanta Braves.

In 1989, Uecker portrayed the occasionally profane, occasionally drunk and always cliche-filled Doyle, the Indians’ broadcaster in the movie “Major League.” He reprised the role in 1994’s “Major League II.”

He wasn’t really playing an announcer. He was playing a parody.

“The fighting Cuyahogas will be leaving their teepees in search of Cleveland’s first championship in 30 years,” he broadcast in one scene.

“If that’s not Shaquille O’Neal in left, it’s out of here,” was another line.

But the World Series isn’t a parody. Cleveland actually is in it and Uecker is part of NBC’s broadcast team for Games 2, 3 and 6.

David Ward, an Indians fan in the movie business, had given up hope that he’d ever see Cleveland win for real, so he wrote the script, sold the movie and directed it.

“I just couldn’t wait any longer,” he said during a local television appearance, “so I said I had better do a movie about this.”

The original movie, starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Corbin Bernson and James Gammon, was the top-grossing film for the first two weekends after its release. The Indians overcame the financial cuts imposed by an owner somewhat similar to Cincinnati’s Marge Schott and surprised the league - and Harry Doyle - by getting in the race and playing the New York Yankees for the title on the final day of the season.

Uecker was hilarious as Doyle, the broadcaster who swigs from a flask while he’s on the air.

“A lot of it was ad-libbing,” Uecker said. “They gave me an outline of stuff, lines they had written and the option of improvising based on the lines they wrote.”

Cleveland players - the real ones - love to have fun with him. They walk up and say “Juuuuuust a bit outside,” an imitation of Doyle calling a pitch several feet off the plate.

Sandy Alomar Jr. walked up to him at the batting cage and called out: “He swings and crushes one toward South America.”

In the movies, Milwaukee’s County Stadium and Baltimore’s Camden Yards were used, partly because Cleveland Stadium was occupied by the Browns and football yardlines were marked across the infield.

When Uecker comes to Jacobs Field these days, he’s amazed by the transformation. The Indians are sad sacks no more.

“It’s been tremendous, fans, screaming and hollering every day,” he said. “It’s such a different story to come in and play in this park and see the things that have happened in Cleveland.”