Today marks 22 years since Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Buck passed away at the age of 77. Buck grew up in Massachusetts and Ohio, but St. Louis became his home when he joined the St. Louis Cardinals broadcasting team in 1954 and he remained with the team through the 2001 season.
Buck received the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of fame in 1996. He was also named Missouri Sportscaster of the Year 22 times, inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995 and the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2005.
Buck started with the Cardinals in the minor leagues before getting moved up to the major league team. He would work the first season on KXOK before the team moved its games to KMOX, where he would spend the next 47 years.
Buck held the position of Sports Director at KMOX, a title now held by Tom Ackerman who also co-hosts Total Information AM in morning drive in addition to overseeing the sports department. Ackerman told BSM about the first time he remembers meeting Buck after starting as a part-time producer with the station in 1997.
“Very early on at KMOX, he was in the sports office by himself, and I came in there. I hadn’t been on the job very long as a part-time producer working behind the scenes. I thought ‘this is my chance,’ so I walked in and introduced myself and told him what a big fan I was and that I had read his book multiple times.
“He sticks his hand out, shakes my hand, looks me in the eye and says, ‘What kind of pizza do you like, kid?’ I’ll buy it if you go downstairs and get it.” Ackerman said Buck called for delivery and he and Buck shared a pepperoni pizza and talked. “He took an interest in me and was talking to me, and he did that with a lot of people. Not longer after that I was around him a lot covering the Cardinals,” Ackerman said.
“I remembered my mom called me and asked me how my day was going,” he said. “I had to tell my mom, ‘I have to go, I’m sharing a pizza with Jack Buck and he’s coming back in the room.'”
Ackerman said early in his career he was hosting a Cardinals post-game show on KMOX. An outfielder who had been filling in for JD Drew hit a couple of home runs in the game. When Ackerman started the post-game show he said, “JD Who?” and talked about what a job the replacement did.
He said the next day, Buck invited him to lunch. At one point, Buck said to Ackerman, “So, I heard your post-game show last night and I heard you say, ‘JD Who?” If I were JD Drew’s parents, I wouldn’t like that very much…Be honest in your reporting but understand the people that you’re covering.”
“My mind was blown that Jack Buck listened to me first of all,” Ackerman said. “But then he was correcting me and praising me at the same time. It was incredible. It was his way of getting his message across but also lifting me up and encouraging me.”
Buck was well known nationally. He called 18 Super Bowls and 11 World Series. He did NFL games for CBS and NBC and did many years with Hank Stram on CBS Radio for Monday Night Football, and he also called AFL games for CBS. He did baseball nationally for ABC and CBS in addition to his duties locally with KMOX and the Cardinals. He also had called NHL and NBA games in St. Louis and had experience doing wrestling, boxing and bowling.
Many remember his famous call when Kirk Gibson hit his legendary walk-off home run during Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, “I don’t believe what I just saw,” and his memorable call of Kirby Puckett’s game-winning home run in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series, “Annnnnd we’ll see you tomorrow night.”
In St. Louis, where there is a statue of Buck outside of Busch Stadium, he is remembered for his “Go Crazy Folks, Go Crazy” call of Ozzie Smith’s walk-off home run in the 1985 National League Championship Series or simply his “That’s a winner,” which he would say following every Cardinals victory. He also had a great sense of humor. In 1998 when the statue was dedicated, Buck said, “I’ve given the Cardinals some of the best years of my life. Now I’m going to give them some of the worst.”
Buck was much more than a broadcaster to those in the St. Louis area. He was involved in the community and one of its strongest supporters. He also hosted and took part in more charitable endeavors than could be counted.
“I followed him to a lot of events when I could,” Ackerman said. “I spent time with him a lot at the Missouri Athletic Club Sports Personality of the Year dinners. To think that I now host it is amazing. I think about him every single time I am up there. I used to sit there and help engineer it and watch him and dream of what that would be like.
“He would go out of his way to emcee events, be part of the community, help people, take pictures and sign autographs, help kids, visit kids in the hospital. He was amazing. He was everything I hoped that he would be and then some. He was a fixture in the community…I think he just really liked people. He was genuinely interested in what people were about, what they did and who they were. I think that made him better at what he did. He was very approachable, and he knew his listeners very well. It felt like he was your companion.”
