After a rainout precluded the original date for Chip Caray and Joe Buck to call a St. Louis Cardinals game together on television, the duo finally made an appearance in the Bally Sports Midwest broadcast booth on Tuesday night. Buck’s father and Caray’s grandfather called games for the team on the radio, working together for 15 years beginning in 1945. The Cardinals appeared in the World Series three times during that stretch and won the championship twice.
With Chip Caray being named the play-by-play voice for the team ahead of last season and Joe Buck preparing to call Monday Night Football on ESPN for the third year, the timing ended up working out to reunite the families in the broadcast booth nearly six-and-a-half decades later.
Caray and Buck opened the broadcast in a traditional manner, analyzing the game and conveying the significance of the moment. Leading into the game, the Cardinals had made a three-team trade that brought outfielder Tommy Pham back to the organization along with pitcher Erick Fedde. While that was a subject of discussion throughout the broadcast, Buck first reflected on the weather as the team avoided being rained out again.
“It’s not raining,” Buck said. “That’s the most important part of the forecast for the night. Maybe a pop-up thunderstorm – hoping that’s not the case – and man, it’s good to sit here with you.”
Buck was frequently around the Cardinals broadcast booth while he was growing up and began calling games for the team to fill in for his father during the 1991 season. Over the years, he had the opportunity to work alongside his father and continued to call games after he retired in 2000. As Buck gained more national broadcasting opportunities, he departed the regional telecasts ahead of the 2008 season, ending a stretch of almost 50 years in which a member of the Buck family was calling games for the team.
“We’re old now, so there’s a little bit of an education as to who even my dad was for a younger generation, but he lived and died Cardinal baseball,” Buck said to Caray. “That’s the way I grew up. I know that your grandfather did until he didn’t, and then he moved on and rose to unbelievable national fame with the Chicago Cubs, and we’re the lucky recipients of, I guess, genetics, and the opportunity to grow up around this great game.”
When Buck was calling Game 6 of the 2011 World Series for FOX Sports, he was behind the microphone as Cardinals third baseman David Freese delivered a game-tying triple with the team down to its final strike.
One inning later, he hit a walk-off home run in the 11th inning to send the series to a decisive Game 7, leading Buck to make his memorable call declaring that they would see everyone tomorrow night, echoing commentary from his father that took place nearly 20 years to the day. Minnesota Twins outfielder Kirby Puckett hit a game-winning home run in the sixth game of the 1991 World Series, and Buck’s father punctuated the moment by saying, “And we’ll see you tomorrow night!”
“If you believe in baseball serendipity,” Caray said, “that call, that moment for you here at Busch Stadium had to be exactly that.”
While the Cardinals faced the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night, representing a rematch of the 2011 World Series, the team fell short of attaining a victory and lost 6-3. The loss pushed St. Louis two games back of the third National League Wild Card spot, while the Rangers moved closer to realizing a .500 record. The Texas Rangers won the World Series for the first time in franchise history last year after defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks in five games. As the game concluded, Caray and Buck spoke about the Cardinals’ strategy at the trade deadline and excitement for the second half before reflecting on working together.
“This was an awful lot of fun,” Caray said. “I loved having you up here.”
“It really was,” Buck replied. “I mean, it takes a while to get back into the flow, but you made it easy, and yeah, on a day where the Cardinals have added two pieces – two pieces that are going to be big down the stretch…. the Cardinals got better today; they suffer a tough loss tonight.”
