Joe Buck is entering his second season as the voice of Monday Night Football on ESPN, and he is fully dedicated to enhancing the national broadcast and accentuating memorable moments. The move to ESPN, however, meant the end of his time calling Major League Baseball games for FOX Sports. Buck is the son of Hall of Fame sportscaster Jack Buck, the longtime announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals, and he grew up and quickly acquired a propensity for the sport. He used the crowd to his advantage, calling iconic home runs, pitching performances and junctures of ultimate bliss as teams captured World Series championships.
“Mechanically, when I was a kid doing games into a tape recorder and then popping that tape out and listening to it with my dad on the way home night after night after night; his notes to me, if you want to call it that, we’re never, ‘Here’s how I would have called that,’” Buck told Matt Spiegel on The PBP: Voices of Baseball podcast by Audacy. “It was about not slurring your words; not getting too fast…. Little things like that, and then finding out if you’re describing things the same way over and over and over. Not every ground ball to shortstop is a ‘bouncer to short.’”
Although he ceded the role to Joe Davis and offered him advice, Buck watched several games from afar and enjoyed the broadcasts. Now, he is starting to think about returning to calling baseball games, publicly stating for the first time that it has recently been on his mind.
“I think I will [do baseball again],” Buck said. “I’ve never said that before, but I just feel like I’m 53, basically 54, [and] I think it’s too early to say nevers at this point in my life. I think at some point, I’ll get the itch again.”
Buck declined an offer from ESPN to call a baseball game for the network last season and previously called MLB on FOX prime time matchups with John Smoltz, including the All-Star Game and World Series. Yet he does not foresee himself ever welcoming people back to national spectacles such as the World Series, instead aiming to endeavor on local team broadcasts and, in turn, represent specific factions of baseball fans.
“Doing a handful of games in St. Louis; doing a handful of games if we move to Denver; doing a handful games in Minnesota,” Buck surmised. “Who knows.”
Coming from a radio background, Buck knows the importance of communicating the game and keeping it at the center of the broadcast’s attention. He is cognizant that his role is to document the game and keep people informed as to what is happening, along with entertaining viewers at the same time. Just as he does on football games, Buck may bring his signature commentary style and sports media acumen back to the diamond sometime in the future.
“The only crisis in baseball is the next pitch. If you don’t respect that, the listener – I would say that as opposed to the viewer, but it still applies in TV – the listener has no idea when the pitch is coming, and there’s no point of reference.”
