Joe Buck will be making his return to the baseball broadcast booth as part of an Opening Day doubleheader on ESPN when the Milwaukee Brewers visit the New York Yankees. It will mark the first time Buck is calling a national game in the sport in four years after leaving FOX Sports to join ESPN as the play-by-play voice of Monday Night Football. Joining him in the broadcast booth will be YES Network analyst Joe Girardi and Brewers analyst Bill Schroeder, analysts that he picked for the venture, as they document the action from the Bronx.
Buck is coming off a year in which ESPN achieved its second-best viewership for the Monday Night Football broadcast property, averaging 15 million viewers per game in the regular season. At the same time, he has been synonymous with the history of baseball as the voice of a record 24 World Series championships, responsible for the calls of indelible moments in baseball history. While appearing on the MLB Network morning show Hot Stove on Tuesday, Buck examined some of the challenges that will be associated with calling a baseball game once again.
“I haven’t done a game really – I did one game with the Cardinals – but I haven’t done a national game since 2021 World Series, and I can’t act like I’ve been up on every transaction the Yankees and Brewers have made, let alone the rest of the league,” Buck said. “I’ve never done a game, really, where I’ve been in charge of it with the pitch clock, so there’s a lot of catching up to do.”
Buck surmised that doing the first game of the season is probably the easiest assignment to do since he will be able to reference storylines from spring training, what occurred last year and the aspirations of the new season. Later in the interview, he mentioned some of the seminal changes in the sport, including superstar outfielder Juan Soto signing with the New York Mets and how Craig Counsell is now managing the Chicago Cubs.
“Here’s the thing,” Buck explained. “There’s going to be people on social media that are like, ‘This guy’s a moron. He doesn’t know that Craig Counsell manages the Cubs.’”
The game broadcast will also mark the first time the Brewers play a regular-season game since the passing of longtime radio voice Bob Uecker. Buck had the chance to spend time with Uecker when he was traveling on the road with his father, Jack Buck, in his youth. Reflecting on the legacy of the Brewers broadcaster, he remembered how everyone naturally gravitated towards him and that he brightened every room. Being able to properly discuss Uecker played a role in his selection process for the analysts that would be joining him in the broadcast booth.
“I wanted a Yankee guy and I wanted a Brewers guy,” Buck said, “and I want Bill to be able to talk firsthand about what it was like traveling around with Bob Uecker.”
Robert Flores, who was hosting Hot Stove alongside Harold Reynolds on Tuesday, asked Buck what it has been like to work with Troy Aikman on Monday Night Football. The duo has called games together for 23 years, but Buck explained that he knew within the first few weeks why he was a three-time Super Bowl champion. Aikman is someone he recognizes will show up to a game prepared and bring genuine authenticity to the game broadcast without trying to garner headlines or create viral moments.
“These guys that have been down on the field like the man to your right, Harold, they know what it’s like to stand in against a 96 mph fastball and have to put it in play, and I always defer to those guys,” Buck said. “And for Troy, he’s the ultimate team player too on top of all that, so we’ve been together for a long time for a reason. We just enjoy being in the same booth.”
The Opening Day matchup between the Brewers and Yankees will air on ESPN at 3 p.m. EST on Thursday, March 27. Upon the conclusion of the first game, the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers will face the Detroit Tigers. The Sunday Night Baseball broadcast team of play-by-play announcer Karl Ravech, analysts Eduardo Pérez and David Cone, and reporter Buster Olney will be on the call for the interleague matchup.
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