Joe Buck addresses Fox career, nepotism, what he misses about MLB in Ford C. Frick Award speech

· Yahoo Sports

Credit: Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

While Joe Buck has been the ESPN voice for Monday Night Football since 2022, he was a prominent baseball announcer for most of his career. Buck was part of St. Louis Cardinals broadcasts from 1991 to 2007, and he was the lead MLB play-by-play voice for Fox Sports from 1996 through 2021, which included calling 135 World Series games.

On Saturday, Buck was honored in Cooperstown for his broadcasting contributions with the Ford C. Frick Award during the National Baseball Hall of Fame Weekend. Buck learned that he had won the award last December. His father, Jack Buck, received the Ford C. Frick Award in 1987. They become the first father-son duo to receive the Frick Award.

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A video was shown on Saturday as a tribute to Buck for a few minutes before his speech.

“It is really hard to watch your life flash before your eyes and not get emotional,” Buck reacted as he got to the podium.

Buck spent roughly the next 17 minutes explaining his appreciation for the award, his career, and those who have played a major part in his life and success.

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“This is special,” Buck continued. “I just want to start by saying this is the highest award, the most memorable award, the most prestigious award anybody in my profession can receive. And I am so honored to get it.”

“It is hard to do something like this and not make it all about my dad, but I’m going to try,” Buck explained. “With apologies to Lou Gehrig, I want to take the next 10 minutes to try and convince you that I am indeed the luckiest man on the face of the earth. At least when it comes to calling this great game into a microphone.

“I was in the crowd in 1987 when my father, Jack Buck, was given this Ford C. Frick Award. I was 18. That’s 39 years ago, and my seatmates that day are here with us this afternoon… I’d never heard of Ford C. Frick, but I saw the look on my father’s face when he found out he was receiving it. And I saw the immense pride that my dad had as he stood on that stage… and talked about the honor he felt being the eyes and ears of Cardinal fans when he sat in the best seat in the house and told them how their team was doing that day or night.

“And that’s really where my story began. Doing the same thing for those fans as I sat next to my dad and Mike Shannon. It actually began two years prior to that in Louisville, Triple-A, calling the Lousiville Redbirds with my great friend Jim Kelch, the lead announcer, who was the perfect partner to a then-19-year-old who was learning what it took to do baseball day after day and give it your best.”

Buck then brought up the topic of nepotism, admitting the guilt he’s long felt for it. But he explained that he’s “leaving that on this stage today when [he walks] out of here.”

“That quickly led to, thanks to nepotism and the novelty of having Jack Buck’s kid call Cardinal games, what I consider the best gig in the business… I got my baptism by fire at 21 years old, ” Buck said. “It was my own little personal game of ‘Monopoly’ as I got to pass go and leapfrog over many people who were broadcasting in the minor leagues, who were far more qualified to call big-league baseball than I was at that stage. in my life.

“Believe me, I felt the guilt back then. I heard the criticism. Weirdly enough, I still feel the guilt, and I still hear the criticism to this day. But I’m leaving that on this stage today when I walk out of here.”

Buck offered enormous praise for his former MLB on Fox broadcast partner, Tim McCarver.

“What a gift Tim McCarver was to my career and to my life,” Buck said. “Yes, please, applaud. He’s a Hall of Famer. He gave me instant credibility, and he didn’t have to. I loved him. He had done two years at CBS with my dad a handful of years earlier, and now here I was acting like a big shot calling him ‘Tim’ instead of ‘Mr. McCarver’ under the bright lights of national postseason baseball. His daughter Kathy is here, and his grandson Bo Root is here. He was so proud of them, and I’m proud that they’re here for me today. I loved Tim McCarver. Can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

“But here’s the divide where the divide in my career and my father’s career, as far as I’m concerned, happened,” Buck continued. “And this is why I will walk off this stage proud of myself as a Ford Frick Award winner from the Hall of Fame. While my dad was predominantly the eyes and ears for Cardinal fans, I was that for Fox Sports. I was given that responsibility, and it was heavy at times, but my god, it is the best job and the most fun you can have in this business, in any sport. Broadcasting the World Series, the All-Star Game. There is nothing better than that.

“My opportunity knocked, the perfect time in 1996. The Yankees won also in ’98. And they’re back. They’re back on the map, if they ever left. But they hadn’t won in a while. 2001 World Series, and the weight of a heartbroken city and country after the attacks of 9/11, and the first pitch by President Bush, still one of the powerful moments I’ve ever seen on a sporting field. The Diamondbacks winning it all in seven on a walk-off hit against Mariano Rivera. 2002, the year my dad died in June, when ironically the Angels were in St. Louis, and then months later, they are winning it in a thrilling seven-game series.

“I won’t go year by year, but I’ll talk about a curse that was broken in 2004, an 86-year-old one, and I got to remind the nation that Red Sox fans had longed to hear, that their team had won it all. The White Sox the following year, with almost flawless pitching and timely hitting. My Cardinals; yes, I said that. My Cardinals winning in 2006 and again in 2011, when I got to tip my cap to my dad and use his line from 20 years earlier. And then a few years later, 108 years after they won the World Series, this St. Louis kid got to scream that the Cubs had finally won it all into a microphone.”

Buck also showed his appreciation for his wife, ESPN reporter Michelle Beisner-Buck, and his Monday Night Football broadcast partner Troy Aikman, who sat by each other.

Credit: MLB

Credit: MLB

Before getting to what he misses about calling baseball games, he explained what he doesn’t miss, after adding, “Oh, and the job is in great hands at Fox with my friend Joe Davis.”

“Here’s what I don’t miss,” Buck said. “Being accused of rooting against every team by rabid fans who just want their boys to win. I get it. It’s emotional. Fans are fans. When I showed up in the booth, I had to get excited for every home run, not just their team’s. Fans don’t hear games like that all year from their home announcers. So, it makes sense. But I’m a pleaser. I want everybody to love me. That’s not possible. The faster you figure that part out, the more fun the job is.”

Buck continued with stories about hearing it from fans, which included a hilarious father-son story involving San Francisco Giants fans.

“But yes, I was chased into my Boston hotel by Red Sox fans coming out of a bar called the Beantown Pub,” Buck said. “They were sure I was in the bag for the Yankees. I was yelled at outside Wrigley Field as a Cardinal lover. I was booed at Shea. I was booed at Dodger Stadium. Heck, Cardinal fans, some of them think I don’t like the Cardinals.

“But there also the touching moments, like the time in San Francisco after a big playoff game when a little boy and his father stood beneath the booth yelling for me to look down as I was packing my backpack after a big Giants win in an NLCS game. Of course, I made that little boy’s day as I looked over the edge of the booth at he and his father simply giving me the finger. Ah, the look of pride on that dad’s face is a look I’ll never forget. And so now, from this stage on this day to those two people somewhere walking the earth, I say back at you.”

Buck then explained what he really does miss about baseball broadcasting.

“Anyway, here’s what I do miss. The feeling just before the first pitch of a Pedro Martinez classic at Yankee Stadium in a Game 7, wondering what are we about to see tonight. Yankees-Red Sox battles into the wee hours of the morning. The core four, the idiots of the Red Sox, Kevin Millar, and Terry Francona holding that group together. McGwire and Sosa in that ride in 1998. The dominant Josh Beckett of the Marlins in 2003. Bruce Bochy and his calm before big games, and his horse, Madison Bumgarner.

“Joe Maddon and the Cubs and having drinks after games at Murphy’s Bleachers. And a who’s who of Cubs fans all there to celebrate their team because they just love baseball. [Edde Vedder], [Bill Murray], [John Cusack], [Bonnie Hunt], [Chris Chelios], [Rick Sutcliffe], and [Kerry Wood]. What a room. What a time.

“I miss the Cardinals of the 90s. My buddy Todd Zeile. My buddy Stan Royer. Card games in their hotel rooms.

“As far as the game is concerned, I miss managers going with their gut. I miss pitching matchups. I miss sacrifice bunts. I miss getting them on, getting them over, getting them in. Broadcasts that don’t talk about launch angle, spin rate, or OPS+. Hey, what can I say? I’m no longer the young kid. I’m older now. A total get-off-my-lawn guy who remembers all that stuff and is convinced the game was way better way back then, in like 2016.

“But the game moves on. I moved aside, and the game passed me by. And that’s okay,” Buck said in his closing comments.

“I’m proud that I guided my network through the end of the 90s and the first part of the 21st century on national TV. Night after night, year after year, I called big moments that needed a stamp on them, and I always tried my best. It took work, time, and courage at a young age, and for every year after. I’m so proud of what I and what we did.

“And I’m proud to win this award on behalf of my family, who made every one of these moments possible with their love and encouragement. And who have made me, as far as I’m concerned, the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Thank you.”

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