by Joe Buck
And Cris was just the best pure broadcaster I’ve ever worked with. He is one of a handful of former players who could do play-by-play if you asked.* I really think Cris could do anything in broadcasting.
But Cris is also out for Cris, and I mean that in the best possible way. He is not selfish. But when he sees opportunity within a broadcast to make a statement that will be memorable, he makes it.
Troy doesn’t need that. Troy made his name as a player, as a Super Bowl champion. Cris was a terrific player, but he wasn’t Troy Aikman. I think Troy will always be remembered as a player, and Cris will be remembered as a broadcaster.
Troy doesn’t want people talking about him after the broadcast. Early on, he made a comment during a preseason game, about Donovan McNabb’s passing being inaccurate. It carried so much weight that the Philadelphia media were asking Donovan McNabb after the game in the press conference: Do you know what Troy Aikman said about you?
They love when a famous Cowboy criticizes an Eagle. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had said it. But I’m not Troy Aikman.
Imagine how the Philadelphia media would have reacted if they knew Troy could have left our booth to play for the Eagles. It’s true: One year, while we were doing a game in San Diego, the Eagles’ Donovan McNabb got hurt. And at halftime of our game, Troy got a phone call from Eagles coach Andy Reid, asking if he wanted to come back and play.
Can you imagine that? Troy Aikman, Dallas Cowboy Hall of Famer, leaving the broadcast booth at the start of a season to go play for the rival Eagles. That would have been wild. And Troy loves Andy Reid. But he said no. He had moved on.
—
I did games with Troy and Cris for three years. Then Cris went to NBC. Nobody knew this at the time, but I had a chance to join him there.
In the winter of 2004–2005, NBC’s Dick Ebersol asked to meet with me. Ebersol has had an incredible career, from working on Saturday Night Live to reinventing how the Olympics are covered. And now he needed a voice for his latest property: Sunday Night Football.
Ann and I met Ebersol in the basement of a restaurant in Manhattan. Ebersol had just lost his son Teddy in a plane crash in Colorado. He started talking about the accident, and he was so open about it. He said he almost died himself but was pulled out by one of his sons. He talked about what it was like to lose Teddy. Ann and I were young parents, and I don’t really like to fly anyway. I don’t know how you rebound from losing a child. I guess you just do it. I was amazed by Ebersol’s strength, and I still am.
Eventually, he started talking about the far less consequential topic of Sunday Night Football. It was clearly going to be the new Monday Night Football—the premier prime-time NFL game each week, and one of the highest-rated shows, period. Ebersol basically told me the play-by-play job was mine if I wanted it.
I was extremely flattered. The insecure part of me felt good—this was a nice counter to everybody who said I got where I was only because I was Jack Buck’s kid. Dick Ebersol didn’t care about that. There was too much on the line for him.
The timing wasn’t right—my contract was still a couple of years from being expired, and they needed a guy quickly. And I don’t think I would have left anyway. I was the top guy at FOX, and I knew Bob Costas would always be the top guy at NBC. Plus, I would have to give up baseball. And I just didn’t want to leave FOX. It was home for me. So I said no, Ebersol hired Al Michaels, and it’s worked out great for everybody.
—
As my dad lay dying, Ann and I were living in that nice house, the one my father had proclaimed was “too big.” I never thought it was too big. It was certainly big enough, though. It was all we needed, despite my occasional golf course fantasies.
But we had money to burn, and financing my golf course fantasies could help us burn it. We found a piece of property right next to Old Warson Country Club, just as I had imagined. And we started building our dream house.
Dream house may be an understatement. You could have built a dream house inside our dream house. It was ridiculous and excessive. It didn’t even feel quite right to me, even at the time.
I said to my father in the hospital, “Dad, this thing is huge.”
He said, “I hope me laying here has taught you: When you’re here, it’s too late. Build your house. Live your life. Have your fun.”
I took that as a sign of approval. And when we first looked at the plans, the house really didn’t seem too big. Then we started building, and I thought, “Holy shit.” It was more than 10,000 square feet, which is crazy. I started to sense that people were driving by and looking at it and saying, “Oh, that’s Joe Buck’s house.” It was not a good feeling.
We moved in a few months after my dad died. We tried to make it feel like a home instead of a hotel, and I think for the most part we succeeded. It’s not a formal house. It felt kind of like a lodge, which is what I always wanted. Give me a warm house with a great TV and a great couch, and deep down, that’s what I really want.
We didn’t do a lot of entertaining. My parents looked for any excuse to hire a piano player and throw a party, but Ann and I probably had two or three parties in a decade. That was it. My friends are scattered around the country, and I enjoy visiting all these different ports and seeing them. When I’m home, I just kind of want to be quiet. So it’s not like I wanted to throw a bunch of parties in St. Louis for two hundred people.
And yet, there was no denying: The house was enormous. People talk about keeping up with the Joneses. I told Ann: “We are the Joneses.” It felt like we were daring everybody in our friend group to keep up, and I wasn’t interested in it. It’s not how I grew up. It wasn’t what I ever wanted. I didn’t want the status of a big house. Maybe we did it because it felt like what we were supposed to do.
And of course, if you have an enormous house, you have to fill it. We kept getting deliveries of rugs and paintings and couches—it felt like we were constantly redecorating. I was fortunate to be making a lot of money, and we just kept spending it on what felt like a bunch of bullshit.
—
While we’re on the topic of spending crazy amounts of money, let’s talk about the Yankees and Red Sox. In the 2000s, the rivalry was both historic and fresh, and it was riveting. You couldn’t script it and couldn’t even imagine until it happened. They had been rivals forever, but this was different. The Yankees were the premier team in baseball again. The Red Sox were trying to catch them and win their first World Series since 1918.
Eventually, the rivalry would lose a bit of its appeal—you can’t sustain that kind of tension forever, especially when (spoiler alert!) the Red Sox have ended their championship drought. But at the time, nobody knew if the Red Sox would ever win the World Series.
Those games were intense, and a joy to broadcast. And the fans were intense, too. Sometimes too intense. After one of the games in Boston in the middle of the 2003 American League Championship Series, I got out of a car across the street from our hotel, the XV Beacon. Two Boston fans were stumbling out of a bar. My eyes locked with one of them. He saw me and said:
“That’s fucking Joe Buck.”*
This guy started yelling at me: “You love the Yankees, you motherfucker! I’m going to kick your ass!”
Well, anybody can say that. But the two of them started walking toward me. Then they started jogging toward me. They were drunk and pissed off, which is never a good combination. I prefer drunk and happy. I had too much pride to run into the hotel like a terrified child, but I walked just fast enough to make it into the hotel right before they could pummel me for being a Yankees homer, which would have been ridiculous because everybody knows I’m a Cardinals homer.* Who has the energy to be a homer for two teams? That sounds exhausting.
The truth is, if I was rooting for anybody at that time, it was the Cubs. They were in the National League Championship Series against the Marlins. To me, the Cubs winning the W
orld Series would be the greatest story in sports. I don’t know what could beat that.
After Game 5 of Yankees–Red Sox in Boston, several of us from FOX were riding back from Boston to New York in a limousine. That’s not our normal mode of transportation—that’s the kind of thing you saw in the 1980s, when network spending accounts were at their peak. But it was cheaper than flying and easier than the train. There was a TV in the limo. The reception was crappy, but we watched the Cubs take a lead on the Marlins in Game 6. They had a chance to clinch a World Series bid, and they would either play the Red Sox in the all-time who-can-end-their-drought series, or they would play the Yankees in the all-time David versus Goliath series. I was fired up.
People were lined up on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues in Chicago, getting ready for history. Then there was this foul pop-up along the left-field line, and this Cubs fan named Steve Bartman reached out and grabbed it from the Cubs’ Moises Alou, Alou got mad, and the whole team fell apart. I felt terrible for Bartman. And it seemed pretty clear, even before Game 6 ended, the Cubs would not win Game 7.
But we would still get the Yankees, the sport’s premier team, or the Red Sox with a chance to end their World Series drought. The Yankees and Red Sox went back and forth in that series. There were so many great players and great characters: Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz.
Tim and I had a current player in the booth with us, as we often did during the postseason. It was Bret Boone. His brother, Aaron, happened to play for the Yankees, too, though nobody thought he was the main story, or even in the top ten.
Bret was fantastic company on the way to the stadium and on the way home. I always liked him. But he didn’t want to be there as a broadcaster. He really didn’t want to do any work for it. He was mailing it in, and I was getting annoyed.
The series went to a seventh game, which is the dream for any broadcasting team. A Game 7 between rivals really kind of broadcasts itself. But it’s intense. We were getting ready in the booth before the game, and Bret was screwing around while we were trying to have a meeting.
I finally said, “Bret, come over here.”
We went into the corner of the booth. I said, “Listen, unless you want me trying to turn a double play with you in Game 7 next year if you’re in it, don’t fuck around with this. This is our job. This is how we make our money. This is what we stake our reputation on, delivering a Game 7. If you want to fuck around, then get out of here. But if not, then either offer something that’s helpful, give some insight, or sit there and shut the fuck up.”
It was one of the few times I was a non-pleaser and confronted somebody. But I felt like I had to say it. I wasn’t going to let him screw up Yankees–Red Sox Game 7.
Bret was taken aback. But during the course of the game, he was more serious. He stopped messing around. One thing Tim and I really prided ourselves on: The bigger the game, the less we talked. It was more dramatic that way.
Martinez was starting Game 7 for Boston. Clemens started for the Yankees. You can’t beat that, and there is no point in hyping it. I told Tim and Bret, “I really don’t even want to talk in the first inning when Pedro’s pitching here in Yankee Stadium. Let’s just let the crowd carry it.”
We did that. I just wanted the crowd to be overwhelming in somebody’s living room. And Bret got it. Finally.
The Red Sox took a 4–0 lead, but the Yankees came back and forced extra innings. Tim Wakefield was pitching to Aaron Boone, Bret’s little brother. Aaron hit a game-winning, series-winning, jinx-defining home run, and Yankee Stadium was rocking. Our booth was actually bouncing. It was insane.
As Aaron rounded the bases, we showed a shot of Bret in the booth. And we kept going back to him, hoping to capture the emotion of the moment. Imagine having Bobby Thomson’s brother in the booth when he hit the “Shot Heard ’Round the World.” It should have been great TV, but Bret was motionless. And Mike Weisman, our producer who is so funny, said, “Bret, you’re on TV, smile or do some fucking thing.” Bret barely moved. Maybe he wasn’t sure what to do. But I also think that, because Bret is so competitive, part of him was thinking: “Why is that him and not me?”
—
The next year, the Yankees and Red Sox faced each other in the American League Championship Series again. This time, the Yankees won the first three games. Before Game 4, the Red Sox were joking about their fate by the batting cage. They were kidding around, saying, “Hey, watch out for us!”
Everybody assumed they were finished. And so did they.
Of course, they won four straight games to win the series, in one of the most dramatic comebacks ever. Since then, they have sold the story that they always knew they had a chance—that if they just won one game, they could win four. But that’s complete crap. I watched them when they were down 3–0, and they looked beaten. They had just gotten crushed, 19–8, in Game 3. Some of the Red Sox wished the Yankees good luck in the World Series.
But that is the beauty of baseball: Even the players don’t know what they might pull off. The Red Sox were literally within a foot or so of being finished when Dave Roberts stole a base in the ninth inning of Game 4. They won that, won the next, and suddenly we had a series again.
I started to think the Red Sox would win it in Game 6. That was Curt Schilling’s famous bloody-sock game—a tendon in Schilling’s ankle needed repeated surgical stabilization in that postseason, and he started bleeding through his sock. I guess, when you think about Schilling’s fake pleas to Bob Brenly’s microphone three years earlier, he could have just put ketchup on his sock. I’m kidding. Schilling truly was remarkable to go through that and pitch as well as he did. What a competitor. And when the Red Sox won Game 6, I think we all expected them to win Game 7.
After the Red Sox won that Game 7, I flew home for Game 7 of the Cardinals-Astros National League Championship Series. The Cardinals’ Scott Rolen hit a home run, and on the video board at Busch, they played a cut from a Budweiser commercial I had done before. In the commercial, my “agent” convinces me to use a catchphrase, and I come up with the utterly ridiculous “Slam-a-lama ding dong!” So on the video board at Busch, they showed me saying “Slam-a-lama,” and then the whole crowd yelled, “Ding dong!”
It was really cool.
And I think that was the last time I was loved in St. Louis.
A few days later, the Red Sox swept the Cardinals for their first World Series title since 1918. I was the voice on TV capturing the moment—and to Cardinals fans, I was “celebrating” their team’s loss. In the eyes of a lot of Cardinals fans, I was betraying them and my family name. They don’t understand: Rooting for the Cardinals or ANY team is not my job. I make the call to the best of my ability when it happens in front of me. I don’t and can’t care who wins. The fans do, however, and I’m glad they do.
—
Of all the teams that Tony La Russa managed in St. Louis, I thought that 2004 team was the best—way better than the 2006 and 2011 teams that won the World Series. It was just Boston’s time.
For me personally, it was great to see Terry Francona win as manager of the Red Sox. I’d known him when he was a player—his dad played for the Cardinals—and I was broadcasting his games when I was nineteen and he played for the Louisville Redbirds. I thought he was as big a part of a World Series championship as any manager I have ever seen, because of the personalities he dealt with (Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz) and the decisions he’d made with the rotation and the bullpen.
Years later, I was watching the show Lost, which was one of my favorites. It’s about a plane that disappears. And the lead actor, Matthew Fox, plays this guy Jack Shepard, who is from Boston. And one of the captors on the island tells Shepard: Since your plane crashed, Americans reelected George W. Bush, Christopher Reeve died, and the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.
Jack started
laughing so hard that he was crying. He didn’t believe it. So the captor pulls out a TV, and my voice comes out of it, saying: “Red Sox fans have longed to hear it: The Boston Red Sox are world champions!”
Jack stood up and leaned toward the TV, stunned and overwhelmed. Watching that with my daughters was really cool.
—
Without really planning to, I was steadily moving away from the job that had defined my life, even when I was a child: the Cardinals play-by-play announcer. In 2005, I cut the cord completely. I left the Cardinals for good.
I wasn’t doing many of their games at that point. I had gone from a full-time Cardinals announcer to a half-national, half-local guy to a national guy who did ten Cardinals games a year, just to keep my hand in it, which was silly. I couldn’t do the job justice. I was supposed to keep up with the Cardinals like I was a regular announcer, even though I wasn’t. I felt like I was keeping my hand in it to say, “I’m part of the Cardinals broadcast team,” and it made no sense. You can’t do ten games a year and be part of the Cardinals broadcast team. It doesn’t work like that. Cardinals games have to be the number one thing in your professional life. That’s how it is for Dan McLaughlin, who is the TV play-by-play guy for the Cardinals. I wanted to get out of his way. It’s not right for somebody to drop into the booth ten times a year and act like it’s his job.
By the end of my time doing local TV for the Cardinals, I would leave my house at 6:15 P.M. for a 7:10 game. I was one traffic jam away from not making the first pitch. That does not speak well of me at all. I realize that. When I started, I would get to the park three or four hours before the game. For a FOX broadcast, I show up four hours before the game. It was ridiculous for me to leave my house at 6:15 P.M. I had mentally moved on, and it wasn’t fair to the Cardinals or to the other people doing the games.
I owe the Cardinals so much, and I will always be thankful for the time I spent doing their games. And I know that I will be identified with the Cardinals the rest of my life, no matter where I go. This amazes me: A lot of people around St. Louis still think I do their games. They don’t pay that much attention. You think they do, because it’s St. Louis and the Cardinals are so big, but a lot of them really don’t.