Lucky Bastard

by Joe Buck

  But I cared. I wanted to talk about it.

  On a three-way call, Plepler decided, “All right, we’ll do it your way. But it had better be done right. It better be funny.”

  No pressure there. But I didn’t really care what they thought anymore. I had to do it.

  So I wrote this opening:

  I’m walking through Times Square, checking my phone and not paying attention, and I bump into somebody. I look up, and it’s Artie. He does this John Belushi thing, like he is so excited to see me. I give this “Oh shit!” smile, like I just ran into the mob boss who doesn’t know I am sleeping with his girlfriend.

  Then I turn around and start running through Times Square. He runs after me.

  We shot it. As Artie chased me, his pants started falling down, which was not intentional. He was losing weight at the time and the pants were just too big. But that made it funnier. The studio audience loved it. Artie was on the show for less than a minute, but the skit did the trick: We had addressed it, laughed at it, and moved on.

  After the show, Ross came to me and said, “That was the right thing to do. That was well done.” I was so pleased—not because it was a funny segment but because I stood up for myself and made a bad situation better.

  To this day, I walk into stadiums and people yell, “Artie Lange!” When I got a Twitter account, it seemed like every fifteenth tweet was about Artie. People seem to think I’m mad at him. The truth is that we’ve become friends. I wrote the foreword to his book. I have nothing bad to say about Artie. He’s a good guy who has demons, and he did what he thought I wanted.

  We did two more episodes of Joe Buck Live. HBO said they canceled it because another show went over budget and they had to cut something. The ratings for the second and third episodes were strong, and I’m still proud of the show.

  In retrospect, it was a mistake to have a live show with no clear vision. The live-TV aspect never bothered me. I like live. I do live every week of my life. So I wanted that show to be live . . . but looking back, Joe Buck Taped would have saved me from the Artie fiasco. If we weren’t live, it would have never been on the air. That’s one of the reason they tape those shows. Those things are edited all the time.

  I wish we could have kept going and really made it a great show. No show can hit its stride in three episodes. Think of Letterman, or Fallon, or Conan after three shows—you just can’t know what the style of the show will become. We never got the chance.

  Chapter 15

  The Split

  In 2009, I went back to Indiana University to speak to a pair of telecommunications classes at the request of the dean of the school. I hadn’t been back there since I left to take the Cardinals job in 1991. For the first time, mammoth Indiana University felt small to me. It was good to be back. I remembered being a freshman, trying to remember my Social Security number and hoping nobody would burn down my dorm with a hot pot.

  I was there to be interviewed for a Big Ten Network show that focused on Big Ten alumni. I sat onstage in the IU auditorium, and the director of the National Sports Journalism Center there, Tim Franklin, interviewed me. He asked about my dad, my childhood, and my career. I had never really taken stock of it all before. I just kind of lived my life. But as I sat up there and talked about my life, my work, and my kids, I almost broke down in tears.

  I flew home and I got into bed. It was almost midnight, and I told Ann, “Well, let me tell you about this show we just did.”

  She wasn’t interested. To be fair, she had just gone on a trip with her girlfriends, and I wasn’t interested in hearing about that. So we went to sleep. That said a lot about our relationship.

  And the times we did talk, it was tense and uncomfortable. Sometimes we fought, which really bothered me. I didn’t like the idea that my kids were constantly confronted with fighting. I had not experienced that growing up. The fights never really escalated into all-out screaming matches, but there was constant tension in the house.

  I felt it. The kids felt it. I’m sure Ann felt it.

  I was terrified of getting separated because I didn’t want to tell Natalie and Trudy. I’m sure that’s why a lot of couples stay together. Inertia takes over. Who wants to take the energy to move to another house? Just suck it up and keep going. It was always easier to let another day, another week, another month, or another year go by than to actually start the process of possibly getting divorced.

  But I started to realize: We were staying together for the kids, but it wasn’t a good environment for them. They were better off if we were apart.

  If my girls were in this same situation as married adults, I would be heartbroken for them. But I would also want them to have the courage to do what they needed to do to be happy. I would never want them to stay in an unhappy marriage.

  So I moved out.

  I never harbored any ill will toward Ann. She and I raised two wonderful girls together, and I wish her only happiness. It just became clear to me that we were not going to experience happiness together again.

  Moving out did not end the stress, of course. I was physically breaking down. I went for a physical early in 2010, and I was falling apart. My vital signs were all over the place. My blood pressure was high. My cholesterol level was up. My weight was down. I weighed 180-something—60 pounds off my peak, and certainly less than was normal for me when I’m feeling healthy. I was so thin that people thought I was sick. I liked the idea of being thin, but it wasn’t for the right reasons. I was stressed and not eating.

  I felt it was my responsibility to make everything right for everybody, and I couldn’t make it right for anybody. And it was a hard thing for me to admit, but I was powerless. I couldn’t fix it.

  My doctor was like, “Man, these were really different readings than we’ve ever had for you.” Ann was with me. I was just sitting there with my head down, thinking, “This has got to be it. I’m going to die.”

  I really leaned on my sister, Julie, at that time. We have gone from combative coexisters to best friends. She took over as the female in my life with my kids and organizing my office when I was gone working. She has loved my girls like they were her own.

  And more than at any other time in my life, I missed my dad. I wished I could have talked to him. If I could have brought him back once, for one day, that’s when I would have done it. It wouldn’t be to talk about broadcasting Super Bowls or World Series. It wouldn’t even have been to talk about my mom or my sister or my kids.

  I wanted to know what it was like when his marriage was falling apart—what he regretted, what he saw from mine, and what he thought was salvageable. After he died, one of his close friends told me that my father foresaw trouble on the horizon for Ann and me. I wished I could have asked him, just once more, what I should do with my life.

  —

  Shortly after Ann and I separated, somebody called a sports radio station in New York and said, “I know why Joe Buck is getting divorced. I’ve heard from a really good source that he’s been having an affair with Fernando Tatis.”*

  Tatis had been the Cardinals third baseman a few years earlier. You know what Woodward and Bernstein always said: If a guy calling into a sports radio station says it’s true, it must be true. The rumor quickly spread across the Internet.

  A. J. Daulerio from Deadspin texted me and said, “What’s the deal with Fernando Tatis?”

  I said, “What are you talking about?”

  He said, “Go online. Call me back.”

  I went online. I don’t know what I expected to read, but I did not expect to read that a former third baseman and I were redefining “the hot corner.”

  I thought, “Oh, my God.”

  I called A.J. back. I said, “The irony of that is, if I were gay, there would still be no chance of me sleeping with that guy, because he hates me.”

  This was true. Fernando Tatis did not like me. I don’t know why. I
must have said something at some point that ticked him off. When Tatis played for other teams—I’m speaking about baseball here—he wouldn’t acknowledge that I had known him from the days when I was calling all his games with the Cardinals.

  I’d say, “Hey, Fernando. How are you doing?”

  He would look up and walk away.

  So for whatever else was going on in my life, I was not sleeping with Fernando Tatis. Or anybody else. I just wanted to get through the divorce, because that’s really the best thing you can do: Just get through it. It will never be fun. You just hope it’s not worse than it needs to be.

  —

  While my marriage was disintegrating, I was involved in a brief, frightening, and (in retrospect) hilarious controversy. It involved Alex Rodriguez, which should not surprise you. Most baseball controversies involve Alex Rodriguez.

  I really like Alex. He is much more a baseball historian than people think. He proved that on air during the postseason in 2015 on FOX. He was always really respectful of McCarver, which I appreciated. He made Tim feel good. Alex grew up in Miami, watching the Mets on WOR, a superstation you could watch in South Florida. Tim was the Mets color commentator.

  He would tell Tim: “That was the sound track of my summers: listening to you and [Ralph] Kiner call the Mets games.” I don’t think he was bullshitting when he said that.

  Alex always wanted to be liked so desperately, but he kept stepping in shit every time he left the house. I feel sorry for the guy. I recognize that I’m in the minority. He’s really sensitive, and that doesn’t work, especially in New York. You can’t beg for approval there. You shouldn’t even try.

  So in August 2010, we were doing a Yankees–Red Sox game (shocking, I know) in the middle of a pennant race. My nephew Jack was with me, and I wanted him to see the field at Yankee Stadium. We walked down there.

  Alex was on the field. He saw me and said, “Hey, Joe.”

  I said, “Hey, Alex,” and kept walking.

  That should have been it. But then Alex started a conversation: “Is that your—”

  He was going to say “son” or “boy.” He didn’t know me that well at that point. He didn’t know I had two daughters but no sons.

  He never got the word out, because at that exact moment, he got crushed in the leg by a Lance Berkman line drive. Alex went down in a heap. Then he got up and started hopping on one leg all the way to center field, where he lay down and started rolling around.

  Jack looked at me and said, “That’s not good.”

  No shit, kid. I looked around like I’d just murdered somebody on the field at Yankee Stadium. We tiptoed around like John Belushi in Animal House.

  Somebody said, “Did anybody see what happened to Rodriguez?”

  And Bill Hall, the Red Sox second baseman, said, “Yeah, he was talking to that FOX announcer—what’s that guy’s name? Joe Buck? Yeah, Joe Buck.”

  Uh-oh. No, guys, you must have me confused with another Joe Buck! The story started spreading like wildfire to the nine million reporters up there. Next thing I knew, I was doing an impromptu press conference, with the New York reporters asking, “What happened?”

  I said, “I don’t know what happened. I’m walking out, he says ‘hey,’ I said ‘hey,’ I kept walking . . .”

  Rodriguez was scratched from the lineup. That’s not good. I asked to speak to Brian Cashman, the Yankees general manager. Cashman came up to the press box. I wanted him to know I felt terrible and that I didn’t intentionally distract Alex.

  Cashman was great. He said, “Joe, if it wasn’t that, it might have been something else. It’s not your fault. It’s OK. We’re not mad at you.”

  I could finally exhale, knowing I wasn’t going to get escorted out of Yankee Stadium.

  But we had to explain, on air, what happened. Viewers would want to know why A-Rod wasn’t in the lineup. I asked Horn for advice. We decided honesty was the best policy. I just told people what happened. Tim backed me up on it. He was always such a good teammate for me.

  Keith Olbermann was there, and he asked me what happened, and I explained it. Olbermann wrote on his blog afterward that there were “two versions” of what happened with Alex. One was that Alex turned to talk to Joe and got hit. The other is that Joe shouted out to Alex during batting practice, distracting him, and that’s why Rodriguez got hit.

  That was bullshit. There were not two versions. It was just a freak thing. I know how to act during batting practice. I’ve known for my whole life.

  I was not a fan of Olbermann anyway. When he does baseball highlights, part of his shtick is mocking my dad. Whenever a runner was obviously going to be safe, Olbermann would say, “They’re not gonna get him!” It’s a reference to my dad making a mistake in his CBS days. I may be the only person in America who knows who Olbermann is referencing. But I know. It pisses me off whenever he does it.

  So I got past that A-Rod incident and the Tatis rumor. But I still had to get through the divorce.

  And while I was trying to do that, I went in for hair-plug operation number eight.

  And that’s when I woke up with no voice.

  Chapter 16

  Vocal Discord

  By this point in the book, you may have forgotten why I’m an idiot. Let me remind you: I had become a serial hair-plugger, and the eighth surgery had cost me my voice. I didn’t know exactly why. I just knew I was in big trouble. It was early 2011. With only a few weeks to go before the start of baseball season, my voice was not suitable for broadcasting major sporting events on national television. I couldn’t even order a cup of coffee at Starbucks.*

  I went to see Dr. Bruce Haughey at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, hoping he could perform some magic. Instead, he sprayed “banana-flavored” numbing spray into the back of my throat. (That crap tastes horrendous. Bananas should sue.) His scope went into the back of my throat.

  After asking me to make a few noises for him, Haughey pulled the scope out and said:

  “You have a paralyzed vocal cord.”

  I would have been very happy to go through life without having a paralyzed anything.

  I asked, as loud as I could: “Well, how long does this last?”

  The answer will never leave my memory. I can recite it verbatim, I can hear his inflection, and I can recall the unease in his voice: “It could be three weeks, three months, six months, a year, or it could never come back.”

  By the end of his answer, I could barely remember the beginning of it. I could only hear the end:

  “. . . or it could never come back.”

  Never? That’s a long time, doc.

  At this point, I had three options:

  Tell the world that I might have blown my career because I wanted hair plugs.

  Take some time off. I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. My dad would have disapproved.

  Did somebody say virus? We have a winner!

  I told people my “virus” would clear in a week or two. It was a bold-faced lie. I even lied to my bosses at FOX. But it was the only option I felt I had. I wasn’t ready for the ridicule I would receive if people knew what really happened. I was just buying time.

  A paralyzed vocal cord is actually on the list of warnings they give you before general anesthesia. (Read it next time you go under!) Mine probably got paralyzed because of the cuff that the surgery center used to protect me. One doctor* (who was not involved in the operation) later told me that during the six-and-a-half-hour operation, the cuff probably got jostled and sat on the nerve responsible for firing my left vocal cord. After a few hours of being squashed, the nerve said, “That’s it. I’m done.”

  I don’t know if stress contributed to the problem, but I suspect it did. I was months into divorce proceedings.

  I arrived at a FOX seminar in early March and acted like I had a cold. I literally needed a PA system to be hear
d in the banquet room. I cannot imagine what my bosses must have thought as I squeaked and hissed out words. But I bet they were not thinking, “Well, at least his hair looks great!”

  At one point, I was playing golf in a member-guest golf tournament down in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Matthew McConaughey was there. You look at Matthew and see a great actor. I look at him, and my hair-plug detector starts beeping.

  I don’t think McConaughey has ever talked about getting hair plugs. But I’ve examined Before and After pictures of McConaughey. I know good work when I see it. And his is fantastic. Whoever moved his follicles should perform live in front of a studio audience.

  So, even though we were on the golf course, I decided to go fishing—for information. I told McConaughey what happened to my voice, with the hopes that, as a fellow connoisseur of the hairscaping arts, he would tell me who did his work.

  Instead, he just said: “So what you’re telling me, buckaroo, is you fixed your video, but you fucked up your audio.”

  I laughed for the first time in a long time.

  I started to realize I was a prime candidate for antidepressants. I started taking Lexapro to relieve my anxiety. My failing voice wasn’t just a professional problem. I struggled to be heard when I ordered food at a diner or talked on the phone. I became obsessed with my vocal quality.

  I tried everything. I did fake play-by-play calls for my daughters when I drove them to school. I did exercises to retrain my cords. I could not break ten seconds without gasping. I also had to say words with the long E sound over and over, because those are the hardest with one cord. Each . . . Easter . . . easy . . . eek . . . over and over. I sucked at that, too. How the hell was I going to broadcast a baseball game? What if Derek JE-ter committed an E-6?

  Dr. Haughey, a brilliant doctor in his own right, selflessly referred me to a doctor in Boston named Steven Zeitels. Dr. Zeitels could go down my throat with a long needle and inject my sleeping vocal cord with Restylane, a fillerlike substance—and he is one of the few surgeons in the world who could do it while I was wide awake. Getting a needle shoved down my throat, like getting a needle shoved in my scalp, was never on my bucket list. But neither was getting fired, so I was ready to try it.