Bob Uecker is bit by a venomous spider and lives to joke about it

Bob Uecker can make a joke out of just about anything. That’s one of the qualities that Milwaukee Brewers fans seem to love about the guy who has served as the team’s radio voice for 45 years.

Uecker particularly loves to make fun of himself on the air, and a recent run-in with a brown recluse spider — one of the most venomous house spiders in the U.S. — has provided with some fodder this spring.

“We were laughing about it on the air,” Uecker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I said the spider didn’t ‘recluse’ himself from biting me. That was a good one.”

The spider bite actually was a pretty serious matter for the 84-year-old broadcasting legend. It happened back in October, while Uecker was in his backyard changing a light bulb.

“I had a pair of shorts on,” he said. “I got bit by a spider but I didn’t know it. I didn’t feel it bite me. The next day, I had a red mark on my leg, and it kept getting bigger. I kept trying to take care of it by myself but it kept getting worse.”

Finally, he went to see his doctor, who told the one-time major league catcher to get to the hospital right away. Doctors performed surgery to remove the infected flesh and prevent necrosis and other dangerous side effects. The wound was left open for five weeks in order to heal properly, during which time another bacterial infection set in that was eventually controlled.

“I’m fine now,” Uecker said. “What really bothered me is it kept me out of swimming from several weeks. Normally, I swim every day.”

It’s not the first health scare Uecker has survived. He has also overcome such maladies as an aortal aneurysm, pancreatic cancer, a leaky heart valve and a staph infection.

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii