When a 27-year-old Joe Buck walked into the 1996 World Series booth at the old Yankee Stadium, he was viewed as the ultimate nepo baby before the term was even born.
The son of the legendary play-by-player, Jack Buck, Joe grew up in ballparks and made his full-time major league debut at 21, calling his dad’s team, the St. Louis Cardinals. Starting on the calls of the Derek Jeter New York Yankees’ dynasty teams, Joe would become the voice of October and sometimes November on Fox for nearly a quarter century, all under the strain of the social media age.
And then, after 24 World Series, he just stopped.
The lure of ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” a $15-million-a-year payday and more time at home with his young twin sons and his second wife, fellow ESPN sportscaster Michelle Beisner-Buck, were too much to refuse.
Since he closed his scorebook after his 24th Fall Classic in November 2021, Buck had not worked a national baseball game.
On Thursday’s Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, Buck was back. With the March air having that familiar Bronx October bite, Buck’s voice made it feel even larger and more familiar.
Buck, still just 55, ended the game with a simple call as the Yankees closer, Devin Williams, escaped trouble against the Brewers’ former NL MVP Christian Yellich.
“Struck him out!” Buck exclaimed. “And the Yankees win it!”
Then he laid out for a few moments to let the pictures tell the story.
“I felt totally comfortable,” Buck told The Athletic in the press box afterward. “I felt like I hadn’t left.”
Buck sounded that way too — a smooth and seamless call at a time that ESPN and Major League Baseball could use some calm.
It has been a tumultuous month between ESPN and MLB, and Buck’s cameo probably won’t change that. ESPN recently opted out of the final three seasons of its $550 million per year contract, which caused MLB’s commissioner Rob Manfred to hiss that the network was a “shrinking” platform. Manfred also complained that ESPN didn’t treat baseball with enough respect. Manfred said MLB opted out of its side of the deal, too. On Opening Day, this was all put to the side.
From the start of the broadcast, ESPN did a very not ESPN thing by not making it about ESPN. The subtle presentation of its play-by-play star made it perfect.
This winter, a top ESPN executive whom Buck adores, Mark Gross, called Buck and asked him to call Opening Day at Yankee Stadium. Buck immediately said yes, which is nice in some ways, but since he is set to make $75 million over five years, no one should get too carried away by the gesture.
Buck said he prepared for Thursday as if it were a Game 7, cramming for a test that he hadn’t studied for in years. (Buck did call a local Cardinals-Cubs game last season with Chip Caray, also a play-by-player of broadcasting royalty.)
Gross let Buck pick his partners. Buck chose the Brewers’ long-time analyst Bill Schroeder and former Yankees manager Joe Girardi. During the broadcast, Buck called the duo his two first-round picks. He might have a future as a GM.
“I loved working with Joe and Bill,” Buck said afterward. “I was stunned how easy they made it feel.”
Buck led the way. The best announcers tell you enough to complement your enjoyment and not too much to invade it.
In the bottom of the first inning, on Yankees’ leadoff man Austin Wells’ right field porch solo shot, Buck accentuated the call with a “See ya,” an ode to the signature of the TV voice of the Yankees on the YES Network, Michael Kay.
In the second, Yankees’ shortstop Anthony Volpe popped a wind-aided solo shot that Buck kept simple with a good, not great, call of, “This ball will carry and go!”
In the third, when the Brewers’ Vinny Capra answered with his own solo shot, Buck was sharp on the right anecdote, noting Capra’s six home runs in the spring.
When the Yankees extended their lead in the seventh with a lucky Aaron Judge double that turned a potential inning-ending double play into a run-scoring double after the ball ricocheted off third, Buck exclaimed, “Hits the bag!” The old tone of postseason memories.
There was a cadence to the game that even a lot of top-tier broadcasters could learn from. Buck, Schroeder and Girardi just picked up the Yankee and Brewers storylines from spring training, not introducing old themes as if the audience weren’t baseball fans.
Buck’s career has coincided with the growth of the internet, an increasingly divisive place with the ascent of social media. Over the years, Buck has reacted to nepotism charges and the criticism that he was rooting against each fans’ team, even though if the legendary Vin Scully grew up in the business during this era he would probably be criticized on X. (“Why does he work alone? His stories are too long!” @cryforhelp11291927 might tweet).
Buck is measured with his words and exclamations and deserves to be considered next to Scully and his dad Jack, among others, as all-time greats of baseball broadcasting. He is destined to win the Ford C. Frick Award and a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
“He strikes a perfect tone,” Gross said.
Buck predictably did it again Thursday. The voice of baseball for a generation was back to work for a day. Sometimes, you don’t know what you have until it is going, going, gone.
(Photo: ESPN Images)