by Joe Buck
I was thinking, “Opening Day? I just hope he makes it out of the hospital.” But I couldn’t say that. It would have created a stir we didn’t need.
My dad got discharged from the hospital after the surgery, but he got an infection a few days later and went back in. He would be in that hospital for the rest of his life. We got him outside one time, because it was a beautiful day and because he was Jack Buck and the hospital staff wanted to do that for him. But it took three people, with the machines and a ventilator. I will never forget the look on his face as he finally breathed in the fresh air on a perfect day in St. Louis. He kept mouthing the word wow, and tears filled his eyes.
He lived for seven months after the initial diagnosis. I wish he hadn’t. He was so unhappy. He had Sundowning syndrome and didn’t know if it was day or night or what month it was.
He would tell me that his friend Bob Goalby, the golfer, was on his ceiling.
I tried to reason with him: “Dad . . .”
He was mouthing everything because of his tracheotomy tube: “I’m telling you, before you leave here you’ll see him.”
I said, “DAD.”
After a few weeks in the hospital, his hair was getting kind of shaggy. So I brought in a friend, Julie, who cut my hair. She was one of the few people who got to see him in the hospital. He was so sick and so tired, and his legs weren’t working. He couldn’t even sit up long enough to get through a haircut. We had to bail on the idea.
What happened next still amazes me: He underwent a brain operation, where he had to sit there for six or seven hours to get these electrodes in his head to calm the Parkinson’s symptoms. They were trying to stop the tremors, with the hope that would help him get off the ventilator. He was awake. They would zap the electrode, or whatever the hell it was, and ask him: “Can you feel this in your foot? . . . Raise your right hand.” And he would respond.
I can’t believe he did it. What incredible resolve. But it also changed his personality. He seemed like a different person. He barely blinked after that.
We didn’t allow many visitors, but there were a few exceptions. Stan Musial, St. Louis’s best and most-loved athlete, brought a bag of baseballs that he signed, and handed them to the entire staff. He said, “Just make sure you take care of this man.” Stan was the sweetest guy of all time. My father would perk up when he came by.
We tried everything to get him healthy. At one point they took out his pacemaker to get an infection down so they could do the brain operation. Think of how harrowing that sentence is.
I discovered the excruciating difference between being alive and being able to live. They kept my dad alive. But he was not really able to live.
At one point, Steve Miller, who was then head of Barnes-Jewish Hospital, came to me. I’d met him through Steve Horn (who had family members treated at Barnes), and he was such a nice man.
Miller said, “We are dedicated to giving him the best care that we can give him. And we will continue to do so as long as you want to. But I’m going to tell you, as your friend, despite whatever any other doctor’s telling you: He will never get out of here. I’m not forcing your hand, but you may want to start to think about how to gracefully end this.”
That was sobering. A week later, I stopped in the hospital after a Cardinals game. I liked to go in then, late at night, because it was quiet.
My father mouthed: “Will you do me a favor?”
I said, “Absolutely. Whatever you need.”
He mouthed again: “Will you promise me you’ll do me a favor?”
I said, “Yes, whatever you want.”
Then he paused and mouthed:
“Will . . . you . . . let . . . me . . . die?”
—
What do you say to that? I acted like I didn’t understand what he was asking me. I said, “What?” But I knew what he had said. I just wanted to see if he would say it again.
He mouthed it again: “Will you let me die?”
And I said, “Dad, we’ve got the best doctors; I know it’s frustrating . . .”
He waved his hands like: I don’t want to hear that. My dad, one of the most upbeat people I’ve ever met, said, “Just let me die.”
I said, “Here’s the deal I’ll make you. If in two weeks, this isn’t better, then we’ll revisit this.” It was a stall tactic.
He brushed me off, and we talked for a few minutes—about my life, the Cardinals, whatever. I don’t remember.
Shortly after that, he started having a series of strokes. That altered his personality, too. At the end of his life, he became almost like a child. I’m sure that made him vulnerable.
I didn’t tell anybody he had asked me to let him die. I kept that to myself. But two weeks later, my mom was in his hospital room with him, and he got angry with her.
“I know what you and Joe are trying to do to me,” he mouthed to her. “I’ve been told by people, and I know exactly what you’re trying to do.”
My mom said, “What are you talking about?”
And my father said, “I know you and Joe are trying to kill me.”
My mom called me, crying. I said he was on so many medications and had suffered so many strokes, he didn’t even know what he was saying.
I said, “Mom, he’s not right. This isn’t him.”
Then I told her: “Two weeks ago he was begging me to let him die. This is a different person we’re talking to.”
My mom told him, “Oh, Jack. All I want is for you to come home.” But it had become clear that he would never come home. My father—a man who was wounded in the Battle of Remagen, which helped end World War II, a man who had earned a Purple Heart—was not much more than a skeleton. He must have weighed less than ninety pounds.
We had to pick a day to end his life. We settled on June 18, 2002.
—
On the evening of June 17, I visited my dad with my wife and my sister. I knew the next day would be the last day of his life. Julie and Ann left, and I sat there and talked with my father—more to him than with him, really, because he was basically out of it. I told him how much I loved him, how much I appreciated all that he’d given me, and that I wouldn’t be where I was without all those hours he had spent with me.
I told him he was my best friend.
I walked out and decided that would be it—the last time I would see my dad. I didn’t want to go back the next day. I didn’t want to be around my half brothers and half sisters to see who cried the loudest. There was no need for me to see him take his last breath. This wasn’t a movie. I had said what I needed to say.
At 9:00 A.M. the next day, they pulled out all the tubes. All my half brothers and half sisters were there, along with Julie and my mom. I was just waiting for updates on my phone, for the news that would hit me before it shook St. Louis: Jack Buck was gone.
An hour passed. Two hours. It was early afternoon, and he was still alive. Soon it was 3:00 P.M. . . . 4:00 P.M. . . . 5:00 P.M. . . . 6:00 P.M. No word.
The Cardinals had a home game at 7:00 P.M., against the Angels, and I was scheduled to do the TV broadcast. I knew he would not want me to miss a day of work. I went on the air.
As the game got under way, the nurses pulled a TV down by his head with the Cardinals game on.
My dad’s heart kept beating. He was not responsive, and he was not making eye contact . . . but he was breathing on his own. He had not done that in six months. On the TV by his head, I was broadcasting this matchup between the Cardinals’ Darryl Kile and the Angels’ Kevin Appier like it was any other casual summer night.
During a break in the fourth or fifth inning, I told my partner in the booth, Al Hrabosky: “My dad’s going to die tonight. I can’t believe he hasn’t passed away already.”
Al broke down and cried.
I didn’t. I kept doing the Cardinals game.
The gam
e ended. Still no word from the hospital. I got in my car, and . . . Dammit. Barnes-Jewish was exactly midway between my house and Busch Stadium. It’s right on Highway 40. It was looming there, daring me to drive past it rather than visit my dad one last time.
I said, “Screw it. I’m going to go again.” My mom and sister had told me the rest of my family had left the hospital. It would just be me and him.
I pulled in, parked illegally, and went up to his room. For the first time in months, there were no tubes and no beeping. He was just tucked in under this white blanket and white sheet. There was a monitor showing his blood oxygen, the only real confirmation that he was alive.
I walked in. The nurses got up and left. They, too, were stunned he was still alive. I bent down and whispered in his ear:
“Dad, it’s time to go. This has been an unbelievable fight. You continue to show your strength every time the sun comes up. You’ve done it again. I’m here to tell you it’s time to go. And it’s OK.
“I’ve got everybody covered. Mom’s fine. We all love you, but it’s time to go. If you’re worried about anything, don’t be. I’ll handle it.
“I love you. Thanks for being my best friend.”
I kissed him on the forehead, stood up, and walked out. By the time I got into my car, he had died.
—
My dad was gone, but the public character of “Jack Buck” still had to die. On my way home, I called KMOX, the radio station that had carried Cardinals games forever. That’s what my dad would have wanted. I told the overnight host, John Carney, my father had died.
He said, “Will you come on?”
I said, “Yeah, I will.”
So when I got home a few minutes later, I sat on the floor in my bedroom, in the dark, and let Carney interview me about my dad’s death. It was a good interview—John handled it really well. But for me, it was so weird. When I was three years old, my dad told me I could sit on the floor in his office while he did a radio interview, as long as I kept quiet. Now I was sitting on the floor at age thirty-two, doing a radio interview about him dying.
It was like I went from being this man’s son to being his broadcast partner and then to a reporter covering his death.
Logically, I should have been crying. I’m usually an easy cry, like my dad was. When somebody wins on American Idol, my tear ducts open up. It must be hereditary. But I wasn’t crying. I was talking on the radio with a steady, calm, professional voice.
I didn’t cry at all when my dad died. Not once. I think it was because I had months to prepare, but also because I was like that three-year-old again, or like the teenage kid who was scared to get in trouble because it would reflect poorly on his father. He had raised me to be professional and composed, and I couldn’t really shut that off and just be devastated.
Normally when a loved one dies, friends and acquaintances help you get through it. This was the opposite. I had to help them. His wake was at Busch Stadium. I emceed it. All my half brothers and sisters were there, and of course my mom, Mike Shannon, Dan Dierdorf, Bob Costas . . . all these people who knew him well, and thousands of others who thought they knew him well. The Cardinals were there, and somebody took a picture of them leaning over a railing, watching the wake. The most prominent player in the photo is Darryl Kile, who was pitching the night my dad died.
In the funeral procession going out to Jefferson Barracks, I realized how many people my dad had touched. There were people who stopped off on the side of the highway, people waving flags. It was mind-blowing.
How many of them interrupted our dinner at Cunetto’s once, and carried that memory with them forever? How many saw him in an airport or on the street and told him a story? How many were stunned when they ran into him again, years later, and he remembered their name and their story? How many just listened to KMOX every night in the summer and felt like he was part of their family?
I got bags of mail. I didn’t get through it all until a couple of months after he died. I got handwritten letters from Bill Clinton and Billy Crystal. Clinton wrote about growing up as a Cardinals fan in Arkansas, listening to my dad and Harry Caray. When you do a game, you don’t think about some future president listening on his radio. But that’s what happened.
I sat in my office and went through one letter after another, people pouring their hearts out about what he meant to them.
Whether it’s Vin Scully in Los Angeles or Ernie Harwell in Detroit, local baseball announcers can have that kind of impact on people. This was especially true in the 1970s and 1980s, before there were a million TV channels and the Internet. But I think, even among that group, my dad was different. He was not just a voice. He interacted with his listeners all the time. If there was a cause, or there was a chance to raise money for something, and somebody asked him to do it, he’d do it. He didn’t ask a ton of questions, and he rarely said no. And I think that generosity really touched people.
He was loved. And he loved being loved. I’m sure a therapist would have told him that, if he’d ever seen a therapist. And I guarantee he never saw a therapist.
The day after the wake, I went to a sub shop with my wife and kids, and after I waited in line for our sandwiches, my daughter, Natalie, said she wanted chips, too. I didn’t see the point in waiting in the sandwich line again just to order chips. I grabbed a bag of chips and went up to the cash register, and this customer in line started barking at me:
“Hey, we’re all waiting in line here. You think you’re better than everybody else?”
I said, “I’ve already waited in this line. I’m getting chips for my daughter. We’ve already—”
“Get in the back of the line!”
“I’m just getting chips—”
“You just fucking think you’re better than everybody!”
I was frazzled and drained. I said, “This has been a long week, man.”
He said, “I don’t give a shit about your week!”
I bought the chips. He kept going: “I’m going to kick your ass!”
He was threatening to kick my ass over chips! It was crazy.
I said, “I just had somebody die in my family.”
He said, “I don’t give a fuck about your family.”
It’s amazing what you remember. I felt there was one guy in the whole city who didn’t know my dad died, and he was threatening to kill me. It stuck with me.
The next day was the funeral. My half sister Christine gave this beautiful eulogy. I spoke after her, and I ad-libbed my first line, like my father would have: “It’s a bad feeling sitting there in the front row, knowing that the eulogy I’m listening to is ten times better than the one I’m about to give. Christine was great. Here’s what I’ve got.” But I was proud of my eulogy.
People told me all these stories I never heard about my dad, just different things he’d done around the city, small acts of kindness that make a son proud. That weekend, I was supposed to broadcast the Cardinals game in Chicago. I flew up there. Gary Lang at FOX Sports put together this beautiful video tribute to my dad. It had pictures of him as a young man; in World War II; and with his family. It showed him reciting the poem he wrote after 9/11, and him skydiving on his seventy-fifth birthday, with his own voice as the voice-over: “You go, and go, and go, and pretty soon you’re gone . . . Adios, Momma.” That was the closest I came to crying.
I was getting ready to do the game when we found out it was canceled.
Darryl Kile had died. He had a heart attack in his hotel room.
My father lived to be seventy-eight. He had a fantastic life. Darryl was thirty-three, just a few months older than I was. He left behind a wife and three young kids. That was a real tragedy. My dad’s story was just life. I was reminded, again, how lucky I’ve been.
Part 5
The Top
Chapter 11
This Thing Is Huge
While my dad wa
s in the hospital, Pat Summerall did his final game for FOX—the Super Bowl between the Rams and the Patriots. My bosses, David Hill and Ed Goren, made it clear they wanted me to replace Summerall and work with John Madden, who was the best ever in an NFL booth, on the number one team. It was an elevated role, and it meant I would do the Super Bowl every third year.
I was excited to work with Madden. But we never did a game together. Shortly after Summerall retired, Madden left for ABC and Monday Night Football.
I don’t think Madden had any personal or professional problem with me, but I do think he was wary of our partnership, and here is why: He had worked with Summerall for two decades. He had one partner that entire time. And with my baseball postseason commitment, I had to walk away from the NFL for a month every season. I don’t think Madden wanted to work with one play-by-play guy most of the season and somebody else in October.
When Madden left, FOX thought about replacing him with Bill Parcells. In his hospital bed, my dad loved the idea. Parcells was one of his favorite coaches. They got along really well. Parcells would tell him things about the inner workings of his team’s locker room—who was playing well, who wasn’t, how he dealt with Lawrence Taylor, that kind of thing. Parcells trusted my father. My dad was so excited we might work together, but that fell through, too.
Instead, FOX put me in a booth with Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth. I would not have asked for a three-man booth. No play-by-play announcer ever asks for that. I’ve done it in baseball, too, most recently with Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci. We did our best, but a three-man booth is awkward. How do you have a normal conversation when you don’t know who will speak next? The play-by-play announcer has to play traffic cop.
I learned that Troy and Cris were an interesting combination. Troy is so meticulous—he studies film and sees the game from a quarterback’s perspective, and he can identify a defense’s coverage in an instant. Every week, I could see why he won three Super Bowls and made the Hall of Fame.