Joe Buck

Joseph Francis Buck (born April 25, 1969) is an American sportscaster and the son of sportscaster Jack Buck. He is known for his work with Fox Sports, including his roles as lead play-by-play announcer for the network’s National Football League and Major League Baseball coverage. Since 1996, he has served as the play-by-play announcer for the World Series each year, with the exceptions of 1997 and 1999.

Early life and education

Buck was born in St. Petersburg, Florida (where the St. Louis Cardinals, for whom his father broadcast, then conducted their spring training) and raised in the St. Louis area, where he attended St. Louis Country Day School. He began his broadcasting career in 1989 while he was an undergraduate at Indiana University Bloomington.

Career

Before Fox

Buck called play-by-play for the then-Louisville Redbirds, a minor league affiliate of the Cardinals, and was a reporter for ESPN’s coverage of the Triple-A All-Star Game in 1989. In 1991, he did reporting for St Louis’ CBS affiliate KMOV. Also, in 1991 Buck began broadcasting for the Cardinals on local television and KMOX Radio, filling in while his father was working on CBS telecasts. In the 1992–93 season, he was the play-by-play voice for University of Missouri basketball broadcasts.

Buck continued to call Cardinals games after being hired by Fox Sports, initially with his father on KMOX and later on FSN Midwest television. As his network duties increased, however, his local workload shrank, and prior to the 2008 season it was announced that he would no longer be calling Cardinals telecasts for FSN Midwest. This marked the first time since 1960 that a member of the Buck family was not part of the team’s broadcasting crew.

Fox Sports

Hiring at Fox

In 1994, Buck was hired by Fox, and at the age of 25 became the youngest man ever to announce a regular slate of National Football League games on network television.

Major League Baseball on Fox (1996–present)

In 1996, he was named Fox’s lead play-by-play voice for Major League Baseball, teaming with Tim McCarver, who had previously worked with his father on CBS. That year, he became the youngest man to do a national broadcast (for all nine innings and games, as a network employee as opposed to simply being a representative of one of the participating teams) for a World Series, surpassing Sean McDonough, who called the 1992 World Series for CBS at the age of 30. McDonough had replaced Jack Buck as CBS’ lead baseball play-by-play man after he was fired in late 1991.

On September 8, 1998, Buck called Mark McGwire’s 62nd home run that broke Roger Maris’ single-season record. The game was nationally televised live in prime time on Fox. It was a rarity for a nationally televised regular season game to not be aired on cable since the end of the Monday/Thursday Night Baseball era on ABC in 1989.

During Fox’s broadcast of the 2002 World Series, Buck paid implicit tribute to his father, who had died a few months earlier (he had read the eulogy at his father’s funeral) by calling the final out of Game 6 (which tied the series at 3–3, and thus ensured there would be a Game 7 broadcast the next night) with the phrase, “We’ll see you tomorrow night.” This was the same phrase with which Jack Buck had famously called Kirby Puckett’s home run off Braves pitcher Charlie Leibrandt which ended Game 6 of the 1991 World Series. Since then, Joe has continued to use this phrase at appropriate times, including Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, in which the Boston Red Sox famously rallied off New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera in the 9th inning to avoid elimination. When David Ortiz’s walk-off home run finally won it for the Red Sox in the 12th inning, Buck uttered, “We’ll see you later tonight,” alluding to the fact that the game had extended into the early morning. He also used the phrase at the end of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series when the Cardinals’ David Freese hit a walk-off home run in the 11th inning against the Rangers to send the series to a seventh game (it was actually 20 years and a day since Kirby Puckett’s home run). The similarity of both the call and the game situation resulted in mentions on national news broadcasts.

Another notable Red Sox game in the ALCS was in 2013, Game 2 against the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park. The Red Sox were trailing 5–1 in the bottom of the eighth inning, with the bases loaded with David Ortiz at-bat. Ortiz hit a game-tying grand slam off Tigers’ closer Joaquín Benoit. His call: “Hard hit into right, back at the wall,” and then he calls, “TIE GAME!” as the ball flies over Torii Hunter, who flipped over the outfield wall.

Buck currently calls a limited selection of regular-season games each year (typically featuring big-market teams such as the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and/or Cubs), as well as the All-Star Game, one of the League Championship Series, and the World Series. Since 2016, he has been paired with color analyst John Smoltz and field reporter Ken Rosenthal. Besides working with Tim McCarver for 18 seasons (1996–2013), Buck also worked with former MLB player and current MLB Network/Fox Sports analyst Harold Reynolds and baseball writer/insider Tom Verducci for 2 seasons (2014–2015). About a month or two after the 2015 World Series, Reynolds and Verducci were demoted to the #2 team and John Smoltz moved up from the #2 team (with Matt Vasgersian) in order to take Reynolds and Verducci’s places.

Through 2019, Buck has called 21 World Series and 20 All-Star Games for Fox, the most of any play-by-play announcer on network television.

NFL on Fox (1994–present)

Soon after arriving at Fox, Buck became the play-by-play man on the network’s #4 NFL broadcast team, with Tim Green as his color commentator. After three years, he stopped doing NFL games to concentrate on his baseball duties full-time. During the 2001 season, Buck occasionally filled in for Curt Menefee as the network’s number-six play-by-play man.

Buck became Fox’s top play-by-play man in 2002, replacing Pat Summerall. He is currently teamed with Troy Aikman as color commentator and Erin Andrews as the sideline reporter. (Buck also worked with Cris Collinsworth from 2002 to 2004, before the latter’s move to Showtime, NFL Network, and NBC). Buck is only the third announcer to handle a television network’s lead MLB and NFL coverage in the same year (following NBC’s Curt Gowdy and ABC’s Al Michaels). By 2002, his Fox duties forced him to cut his local Cardinals schedule to 25 games. (Eventually, Buck left the Cardinals altogether to join Fox Sports “full-time” in 2008). Notable games he called include Super Bowl XLII, Miracle at the New Meadowlands, Super Bowl LI, and the Minneapolis Miracle.

Fox NFL Sunday (2006)

On August 14, 2006, Buck was named the host of Fox’s pregame NFL show, Fox NFL Sunday and postgame doubleheader show. According to the Nielsen ratings system, viewership was down for the entire season. Fox announced in March 2007 that Buck would no longer host Fox NFL Sunday in 2007, concentrating on play-by-play for the week’s marquee game.

Two-sport, same-day doubleheader

On October 14, 2012, Buck called a doubleheader, first with the New York Giants-San Francisco 49ers game at 4:25 PM, then traveled via trolley for the seven-mile journey across town to call Game 1 of the NLCS between the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants.

The opportunity presented itself again on October 28, 2018, when Fox would carry the Green Bay Packers and Los Angeles Rams from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as its featured NFL game before Game 5 of the 2018 World Series, to be played five miles away at Dodger Stadium. However, Buck chose to concentrate on baseball, citing traffic concerns in Los Angeles and already being busy calling the NFL and MLB simultaneously. Thom Brennaman, who has served as Buck’s fill-in during the MLB postseason in the past, handled the Packers-Rams game.

Fox USGA

In April 2014, it was announced that Buck would team with Greg Norman to anchor Fox’s new package of United States Golf Association telecasts, most prominently the U.S. Open tournament. The pair made their broadcast debut at the Franklin Templeton Shootout (an event also hosted by Norman) on December 12–14, 2014. Norman was fired by Fox and replaced with Paul Azinger in 2016.

Thursday Night Football on Fox/NFL Network (2018-present)

In September 2018, Buck started doing play-by-play for Thursday Night Football on Fox/NFL Network with Aikman (game analyst), Andrews (reporter), Kristina Pink (reporter) & Mike Pereira (rules analyst).

HBO Sports (2009–2010)

On February 5, 2009, Buck signed with HBO to host a sports-based talk show for the network called Joe Buck Live, with a format similar to that of Costas Now, the monthly HBO program previously hosted by Bob Costas. The show’s debut on June 15, 2009, made national headlines due to the tension-filled banter between Buck and guest Artie Lange, a comedian from The Howard Stern Show, who made several jokes at Buck’s expense. Two more episodes aired in 2009. In March 2010, Buck told a St. Louis radio station that HBO might be planning to cancel Joe Buck Live, adding that he “won’t really miss” the program and that it involved “a lot more effort and hassle than I ever expected”. HBO subsequently confirmed the show’s cancellation to Broadcasting & Cable.

NHL on Fox

On February 12, 2013, the Los Angeles Kings visited the St. Louis Blues and Buck got invited into the booth along with Darren Pang and John Kelly. Buck called about five minutes of the second period, including a goal from the Los Angeles Kings to make it 3-1. While in the booth, Buck talked about his father calling Blues hockey along with Kelly’s father Dan in the late 1960s, and talked about how fast-paced and exciting the game of hockey was. After the Los Angeles Kings made it 3-1, Buck shortly thanked the other two guys in the booth and headed out.

Other notable appearances

In the late 1990s, Buck hosted a weekly sports-news show, Goin’ Deep, for Fox Sports Net cable. He also called horse racing and professional bass fishing events early in his Fox career, as well as the network’s first Cotton Bowl Classic telecast in 1999.

Since 2001, Buck has hosted the “Joe Buck Classic”, a celebrity pro-am golf tournament that is played each May to raise money for St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

In 2007, Buck filmed a pilot episode for a prospective late-night talk and comedy program with former Saturday Night Live writer and director Matt Piedmont. Piedmont and Buck wrote and produced the pilot with Piedmont directing, filming in New York City and Los Angeles and featuring Molly Shannon, David Spade and Paul Rudd. Buck co-hosted the program with Abebe Adusmussui, an actual New York City taxi driver. The pilot was not picked up as a series, however.

Buck has also appeared in various national television commercials for such clients as Holiday Inn and Budweiser beer. One of the more memorable spots for the latter had Buck goaded into using the catchphrase, “Slamma-lamma-ding-dong!” A 2008 commercial for National Car Rental had him using the catchphrase, “Now that’s a good call”. Buck has also done local commercials in the St. Louis market for the Suntrup chain of automobile dealerships.

He also contributes occasional opinion pieces to The Sporting News, and is a key contributor on Team 1380 on the ITD Morning After program in St. Louis.

In the week before calling Super Bowl XLVIII, Buck starred in a Web video for Funny or Die in which he tries to report on the game from New York City but continues to get interrupted by locals who dislike him.

In 2014, Buck was named as the new host of NFL Films Presents, to coincide with the program’s move from ESPN2 to Fox Sports 1.

From 2015 to 2018 Buck hosted Undeniable with Joe Buck, a sports interview series on Audience Network.

Buck published an autobiography, Lucky Bastard, in 2016.

He has appeared in several television programs as himself, including Pitch, American Dad!, Family Guy, Conan, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Brockmire; the film Fever Pitch (also starring Jimmy Fallon); and in the “Carpet Brothers” sketch on Funny or Die Presents as The Legit Don Stritt. Buck’s voice is also heard in recorded conversations between Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky calling Game 5 of the Yankees-Indians ALDS in 1997. The tapes were released at the height of the scandal involving Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton.

Awards and honors

• Seven-time Sports Emmy Award winner
  • Six for Play-by-Play
  • One for Studio Host
• Three-time NSMA National Sportscaster of the Year.
• 2020 Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame (Joe’s father Jack Buck won the award in 1996, making him and Joe the first father-son duo to earn the distinction).

Controversies

Buck is generally regarded as “one of the most heavily criticized” announcers in sports, with various fans complaining that he is biased on his calls towards or against particular teams. Buck attributes this to the fact that most fan bases, especially Major League Baseball fans, are used to hearing local announcers and not those working national broadcasts: “Fans are used to hearing their hometown guys. When you come at it objectively, people aren’t used to it.”

Reporting from the field following the game in which Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record in 1998, Buck began his postgame interview on Fox by requesting (and getting) a hug from McGwire, which led to criticisms of Buck’s on-air professionalism from some sources.

In January 2005, Buck drew fire for his on-air comments during an NFL playoff game between the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers. After Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss simulated mooning the Green Bay crowd in the end zone, Buck called it a “disgusting act.” The moon was actually a response to Packer fans, who traditionally moon the Vikings players aboard the team bus, which Buck did not mention. Buck’s comment also indicated that he incorrectly believed that Moss had in fact mooned the fans. It prompted Red McCombs, then the owner of the Minnesota Vikings, to request that Buck be removed from covering their upcoming playoff game, saying that Buck’s comments “suggested a prejudice that surpassed objective reporting.” Buck also received criticism from other members of the media who felt he “over-reacted” and was being “inconsistent” given his network’s history of programming. Buck was much more restrained in his call of the New York Jets’ Isaiah Crowell using the football to simulate cleaning himself after defecation during a 2018 Thursday Night Football contest against the Cleveland Browns. “That will draw a flag every time,” Buck simply commented.

In 2007, Buck was scheduled to call only eight regular season MLB games out of a 26-game schedule for Fox (along with a handful of regional Cardinals telecasts on FSN Midwest). In an interview with Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, he defended his reduced baseball commitment:

If you or the casual fan doesn’t want to consider me the No. 1 baseball announcer at Fox, it’s not my concern … I don’t know why it would matter. I don’t know who had a more tiresome, wall-to-wall schedule than my father, and I know what it’s like to be a kid in that situation … He was gone a lot. He needed to be. I understood it. So did my mom. Because my career has gone the way it’s gone, I don’t have to go wall to wall. …While I’m deathly afraid of overexposure, I’m more afraid of underexposure at home with my wife and girls.

In 2008, Buck drew criticism for comments he made during an appearance on ESPN Radio’s The Herd with Colin Cowherd, in which he admitted to spending “barely any” time following sporting events he doesn’t broadcast and facetiously claimed that he preferred watching The Bachelorette instead.

In June 2015, Buck announced he had quit his Twitter account. Buck explained that he quit Twitter because he found himself engaging negative people and allowing criticism to affect how he was doing his job. He would return to Twitter four months later to engage in friendly banter with a Kansas City Royals fan who started a petition to have him removed from the Fox broadcast team for the Royals’ appearance in the 2015 American League Championship Series.