Lucky Bastard

by Joe Buck

  This is not just a problem for sports announcers. It’s political figures, athletes—anybody in the public eye. My dad would not have been the same Jack Buck with these same politically correct handcuffs that are on everybody. Harry Caray once said on air that he was getting shot up with cocaine, and his broadcast partner said, “You mean Novocain?” and they laughed about it. That’s how it should be. There used to be a way to say something and then laugh about it and let everybody know it was just a light moment, without being pilloried.

  Now you get a fifteen-year-old who can shred you on Twitter for saying something that he or she doesn’t like—and might not even understand. The best broadcasters used to have an edge to them, a sarcastic sense of humor. In today’s world, I’m just not sure that they would have the freedom to be themselves. These days, even if you have thick skin, your bosses might not. David Hill and Ed Goren didn’t need Twitter to tell them what was good. They worked off their gut.

  People read the conversation on Twitter or Facebook and panic. So everybody, consequently, is straight down the middle, and anybody who takes two steps to the left or the right sounds insane.

  After so many years in this environment, I have developed filters in my head. It hurts me in my personal life. I can be hypercritical of myself. I think, “How did that just come out of my mouth? Will somebody be upset by it?” I’m so conscious of perception that it makes me kind of a social freak.*

  Then when I have a couple of drinks, I’m like, “Fuck it, who cares? Nobody cares.” Then I say whatever comes to mind. I go too far the other way, but it’s the only time I can truly relax.

  The solution, obviously, is to become a raging alcoholic. I’m kidding. But I do wish I could cut loose a little more without worrying about how people will react.

  It’s hard to find that balance. I understand that if you’re constantly searching for all of the public’s approval, you’re never going to get it. If you’re looking for other people’s validation, you’re just going to be constantly searching and never be happy. But for a long time there, I was searching a little too much.

  —

  Sometimes, you don’t have to look online to find a critic. Sometimes he is right there in your face, in his office, in the middle of the World Series. This happened to us in 2006, when the Detroit Tigers faced the Cardinals.

  Our high-definition cameras caught Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers with a smudge of a brown substance on the fat part of his thumb on his pitching hand. Ed Goren was in the back of our truck. He said, “What’s on his hand?”

  It appeared to be pine tar. So we talked about it on the air. A few Cardinals players heard our broadcast in their clubhouse. They came down and told their manager, Tony La Russa. He had the umpires check it out. Rogers wiped it off. He wasn’t kicked out, and the Tigers won the game.

  The next day was a travel day. When we arrived in St. Louis for Game 3, we walked into Tigers manager Jim Leyland’s office.

  Leyland was usually very helpful. He is also genuinely funny. This time, he was in no mood to joke. We sat in that office, and it was like a funeral parlor. He wouldn’t even look at us. We were trying to make small talk. The series was tied 1–1. We asked about how his trip to St. Louis went.

  He said, “Fine.”

  OK. He was giving only one-word answers.

  Eventually, Tim said, “Jim, is there something wrong?”

  This was the opening Leyland wanted.

  Leyland said, “I’ll tell you. Was there something wrong? You should fucking know better, Tim McCarver. You played this game. You fucking played this game! You know that these guys have shit on their hands. It’s this time of year. You should know fucking better.

  “But you know what? FOX doesn’t want us in the World Series, Major League Baseball doesn’t want us in the fucking World Series. They want a New York team. They don’t want the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.

  “Of all the people in this room, you should fucking know better. That’s not something you fucking talk about.”

  To Tim’s credit, he stayed calm and poised.

  Tim said, “Jim, that’s not right. If it’s on there, people are talking about it. It’s my job to talk about what we see. It’s not my job to cover it up.” He also explained that FOX had no problems with the Tigers being in the World Series.

  Leyland said, “That’s fucking bullshit. What are your questions? Let’s go.”

  We got out of there quickly. It wasn’t like Leyland was going to calm down and start giving us good answers. But the most telling part of the conversation was not what Leyland said. It was what he did before he said it:

  He left his office door open.

  That way, his players could hear his rant.

  I think it was all manufactured so his players would see him standing up for them. It was, as Jim Leyland himself might say, fucking bullshit.

  At the end of that World Series, when it was over, Tim said, “I’m going to go down and talk to Leyland.” That was not usually his style. Normally, he would bolt after a game.

  I went with Tim down to Leyland’s office.

  Tim said, “Look, I know you’re pissed off about what happened in Game 2. But I just want you to know we’re just trying to do our jobs. I’m trying to do my job the best I can, and you’re trying to do your job the best you can. You guys have had a hell of a year. Thanks for all the time you gave us. Good luck. Have a good off-season.”

  It was a classy move. Leyland was fine at that point. They had just lost the Series in five games. It was over. I think the stress was gone.

  We started doing that a lot—visiting managers after a series. There usually isn’t any controversy to address—we just thank them. These managers do spend a lot of time with us. They give us a lot of information that they don’t give everybody else. We want them to know it’s appreciated.

  —

  That same fall, James Brown left our pregame show, FOX NFL Sunday, to work for CBS. I was asked to replace him. But there was a problem. FOX NFL Sunday, as you might imagine from the name, is broadcast on Sundays. So are my games. And I could not be in two places at once.

  I was presented with two options.

  Option Number 1: Quit the games. Steve Horn thought this was a good idea. His argument was that if I got more face time on TV, I would be in a more prominent position. But I didn’t want to give up the games. The games are why I got into this business in the first place.

  Option Number 2: The pregame show, which had been shot in a studio in LA, would go on the road with me. Some people take an extra carry-on bag when they travel. I would take Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, and Howie Long.

  This was not my idea. But David Hill thought it would be like ESPN’s College GameDay, with fans at the stadium holding up signs and screaming behind us. So that’s what we did—we took FOX NFL Sunday on the road that year, which was an enormous expense.

  And honestly: It didn’t really work. NFL games are not like college games. People do not show up hours beforehand, hoping to get on TV. We had a lot of empty parking spots behind us. It was more like a College GameDay rehearsal than the actual show.

  And the pregame guys—Bradshaw, Long, and Johnson—wanted no part of being on the road. They liked staying at the same luxury hotel every week, getting picked up in the morning, doing an hour-long pregame show, halftime shows, postgame stuff, and getting out of there. They weren’t real interested in going to Minnesota one week and Kansas City the next, just to do the show in front of empty parking spots. I couldn’t blame Terry, Howie, and Jimmy for feeling that way. They were so great to me, but I knew they didn’t like the setup.

  We started losing audience share to CBS for the first time in a long time. Our producer told me people missed James Brown. He said I needed to smile more. Great—I lost weight and got hair plugs, and now I need to worry about my teeth? I was also told to tee u
p these other guys more and not really have an opinion.

  I said, “Well, it’s not my fault that James Brown left. I wasn’t involved in that negotiation. And this is me. This is who I am. You asked me to do this. If it’s not good enough, it’s not good enough. But I’m not going to be fake.”

  I wasn’t allowed to do much on the show. The pregame show was scripted, which baffled me: Why go to such lengths so I can be involved if I have to read somebody else’s words? So I would play my little role, and at the end of the show, I would hop into a golf cart and race to the broadcast booth. It hurt my chemistry with Troy because I wasn’t spending much time with him. I was basically just showing up before kickoff.

  After the game, I had to sprint down and do our postgame show, The OT. And that went better, because you couldn’t script it. We had to react to what happened that day.

  Thankfully, my agent, Marvin Demoff, had put in my contract that at the end of the year, I would have a choice: be the studio host or do games. For the last two weeks of the season, we did the pregame show in Los Angeles at the FOX NFL studio and I didn’t do any games. But I had made my decision: I would give up the studio job and stick with the games.

  —

  While I was in Los Angeles, Jason Patric invited me to a New Year’s Eve party at Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber’s house. Jason had remained a close friend after our 2001 hangover wore off.

  I don’t know about you, but I don’t get invited to Naomi Watts’s house very often. I was not actually invited this time, either. But Jason got me in, and I brought Steve Horn, who definitely doesn’t get invited to Naomi Watts’s house very often.

  Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction was there, and so was actress Gina Gershon. I was in heaven. You can fill a room with Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan and guys like that, and for whatever reason, I don’t flinch. Maybe it’s because I’ve been around famous athletes my whole life and I’m used to it. But give me a room full of Gina Gershons and that’s fun to me, because I enjoy their work and I love talking to them.

  After we left Naomi Watts’s house, Jason said, “Kate Hudson has a New Year’s Eve party at her house.”

  I said, “Are you sure we’re invited to this thing?”

  He said, “Yeah, yeah, we’re invited.”

  “So how did you get invited?”

  “My publicist.”

  “OK.”

  So we walked in the front door. It was like 1:00, 1:30 A.M. The paparazzi were packing up. I was walking in, thinking, “God, the last person I want to see is Kate Hudson. She’s going to say, ‘Happy New Year! You’re nobody. Get out!’”

  She answered the door. She said hi to Jason and gave him one of those big fake Hollywood hugs.

  Then she stopped me and said, “Wait. Who are you?”

  “Uh, I’m with Jason. Is it OK that I’m here?”

  She said, “You’re the football guy! You’re the football announcer!”

  She grabbed me by the hand. She and a friend of hers, Juliana Roberts, sat with me and talked for the majority of the rest of the night.

  Kate and I really hit it off. And she is a huge football fan. We have been friends ever since.

  The following year, before the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, I ran into Kate and her dad Kurt Russell, on the field. My wife did not object to my friendship with a beautiful Hollywood star, partly because I never told her. Our marriage was already crumbling. Even though Kate and I were just friends, I thought it would be easier to avoid the topic altogether.

  But that night, after the Super Bowl, I ate pizza with my family and I said, “You know who I met today? Kate Hudson. She was great. Couldn’t be nicer.” It was a full-on lie—I had known Kate for a year, and we had become good friends. I don’t know why I chose that moment to tell my wife I had just met Kate Hudson. But if you believe there is a benevolent God who covers the asses of men who tell stupid lies to their wives, then he was looking out for me, because the next day, we all ran into Kate at a private airport.

  Kate ran up to me and gave me this big hug in front of my wife and kids. Steve Horn said afterward, “That seemed a little too familiar.” But as far as Ann knew, that was the first weekend I met Kate. My relationship with Kate somehow featured the lies and awkwardness of an affair, but without any of the sex.

  And as my marriage fell apart, I relied on her friendship to help me get through it. I learned that Kate is a genuinely good person. She is very sweet, but also funny and cutting, and she is very smart. She’s a great mom. She’s driven. She’s accomplished.

  But she’s also somebody’s kid. She will forever be known as Goldie Hawn’s daughter to some people, especially people my age. The younger generation probably doesn’t even know what a great actress Goldie Hawn is. But Kate has had to live with that her whole life.

  We’ve talked a lot about following in parents’ footsteps. You feel like you’re constantly trying to prove yourself because your famous parent gave you a head start. You’re constantly fighting that perception, and you even have to fight it in your own mind.

  At some point, the nepotism charge doesn’t fly. These aren’t desk jobs, where you can be the Vice President of Doing Nothing, and everybody else in the office cleans up your mess, but nobody will fire you because your father owns the company. I’m the one who has to do the game. Kate has to act on-screen. Either you can do it or you can’t.

  Just as broadcast booths were my playgrounds when I was a kid, Kate has been on movie sets her whole life. She was around her mom, and then she was around Kurt Russell a lot—Kurt is technically her stepfather, but Kate thinks of him as her dad.

  I’ve told Kate what I can’t tell many people (though, obviously, I’m putting it in this book) . . . I appreciate when people say they loved my dad, because I loved him, too, but it can be frustrating to always hear compliments that start with “I got to tell you, your dad is the greatest I’ve ever heard.” Sometimes I wait for the second part, the acknowledgment that I do the job well, too, and most of the time it doesn’t come.

  Somebody will come up to me in the airport and say, “Your dad was the best.”

  I’ll say, “You bet he was.”

  Then they walk away to buy a nine-dollar airport muffin, and all my old insecurities creep up and park themselves in the front of my brain.

  I think it’s inherent in everybody’s human nature to think, “That person got advantages that I didn’t get. And that’s why that person is successful.” It doesn’t even matter if you are in the same line of work. I just think that’s just the way people are. When you’re on the other end of it, it can prey on your insecurities.

  Here I am, in my forties, and I’ve done a lifetime’s worth of World Series and several Super Bowls, but I feel no different inside than I did when I started as Jack Buck’s kid. I still look at players as if they’re older than me, which is hilarious. I’m older than all of them. I’m older than some managers. But I don’t feel like I am, because I still see myself as a kid around these big-league ballplayers. Emotionally, I can’t turn that off.

  I will sit in a production meeting with Aaron Rodgers and I feel like he’s a contemporary, but he isn’t. I have to remind myself that he’s fourteen years younger than I am. And Aaron Rodgers probably doesn’t even know who my dad was, or if he does, he isn’t thinking, “That’s Jack Buck’s son. That’s the only reason he is here.” But I feel that’s always hanging over me.

  Nobody really wants to hear this, of course. In the big picture of my career, and my life, this is all a very small price to pay. I get that. But it can still mess with my head. I think the lesson is that, no matter how lucky you are (and I am certainly lucky), you’re still going to have challenges and tough days.

  And if those challenges are a result of being a celebrity, the only people you can really confide in are other celebrities. Everybody else will think you’re
a prick with no perspective. During the 2008 World Series in Philadelphia, I was getting off a hotel elevator when I ran into Eddie Vedder. I didn’t know him, but he’s a sports nut—probably a bigger sports fan than I am. So we talked for a minute outside the elevator. I’m a huge Pearl Jam fan, so the next night on the broadcast, I mentioned that they were playing the last concert ever at the Spectrum, which was about to be demolished. We have been friends ever since. He has really helped me deal with the criticism that comes with my job.

  I think Kate understands it better than anybody. She told me once: “Americans love a good success story. They’re just not sure what to do with the success story that comes out of a success story.”

  In two sentences, she summed up one of the essential conflicts of my life.

  Part 6

  The Bottom

  Chapter 14

  Grandstanding

  In the spring of 2000, my family flew to New York for the Sports Emmys, where my dad was scheduled to receive the lifetime achievement award and I was scheduled to lose.

  I was nominated in the play-by-play category against Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Dick Enberg, and Mike “Doc” Emrick. They were all legends. I was thirty-one. Nobody thought I would win, including the presenter, boxer Floyd Mayweather, who opened the envelope to announce the winner and said: “Joe Buck?!?!?”

  Mayweather was as shocked as I was. For years, that was the closest anybody came to knocking him down.

  Our table erupted. I collected hugs from my mom, my dad, my wife, Ann, and my best friend from home, Preston. What timing! They were only there because of my dad’s award, and then they saw me win my first Emmy. I accepted my award from Mayweather, then went back to our table and got ready to present my father with the lifetime achievement award.