Stalkers

Each year the Milwaukee Brewers host a "Media Day" to pay tribute to the Radio and TV stations that carry Brewer Baseball games. KFIZ's Mark Kastein attended this year's and told us afterwards he was surprised how openly Bob Uecker was in talking about a recent incident in which he had to go to court to file an injunction against a woman who had been stalking him for years. "Mr. Baseball" said he'd been putting up with it until she showed up at a hotel pool when the Brewers were in Pittsburgh for a series with the Pirates.

We've heard horror stories about celebrity stalkers and some of them have ended tragically. I thought I'd put in my two cents worth with my own story. No I wasn't the stalker, but the stalkee.

It happened while I was working in Munising, Michigan. I started getting calls at the radio station I was working for from a woman who was actually a neighbor. She sounded a little off telling me stories like my landlord used to sneak over to her yard at night and smoke marijuana underneath her bedroom window.

One day she decided to up the ante and pay a visit to the radio station. It was a small station and typically there would be times when I would be working alone, this particular day happened to be one of them. We used to make copies for people so it wasn't unusual for anyone to walk in off the street to ask for that service.

So in walks this woman with a can of Pledge or something similar. She pulls out a pair of rubber gloves and slips them on and as she is talking to me she starts spraying office desktops and dusting them. She mentioned something about germs. I can't really tell you what the drift of the conversation was after that because I was too busy trying to diplomatically get her to leave.

Not too long after that she called me one day and told me that the house I was living in was on fire. That was upsetting so I called the local Sheriff and asked him if he was familiar with the woman. He was. Was she dangerous? He said no except for that one time she sat on her front porch and fired off a shotgun over cars that were passing by. He then said she was an annual visitor to the local mental health facility and perhaps it was time for that yearly trek. I don't know what the Sheriff did, but I didn't hear from her again during the remaining time I worked there.

It surprised me to hear that Bob Uecker had a stalker, but then anyone who knows me could say the same thing.