Jack Buck Provides a Little Something for Almost Everyone

You can usually tell where a person grew up just by asking them whom they listened to on the radio as kids.

Northern Californians and those along the old Golden West Radio Network can be identified by their allegiance to Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons. If it’s Vin Scully, you’re talking to a Southern Californian.

If you grew up on the other coast, it’s Red Barber or Mel Allen or maybe Curt Gowdy.

But it’s a little more difficult to pin down the hometowns of Jack Buck fans.

Millions of baseball fans who grew up between Denver and Memphis or between Iowa City and Galveston grew up listening to Buck as he detailed the latest adventures of the St. Louis Cardinals -- from Stan Musial to Ozzie Smith.

Every kid in the heartland of America with a transistor radio near his pillow and a bedroom far enough from mama’s could dial in the “50,000 red-hot watts” of KMOX radio from St. Louis or one of the other outposts along the Cardinals’ vast radio network.

Buck’s trademark call of “That’s a winner” has put more kids to bed throughout the Midwest over the last quarter-century than “Now I lay me down to sleep.”

The rest of us, who over the years have had just a passing acquaintance with Buck, will get to know him better this summer.

At 65, when most people are making sure their library card is valid or are lining up a favorite fishing hole, Buck has become the lead voice for CBS Television’s coverage of major-league baseball.

There was a mild controversy when CBS named Buck to replace Brent Musburger as the main man earlier this month. He was too old, they said. Better get Bob Costas from NBC, they said, or Al Michaels from ABC, they said.

Poppycock, Buck said.

“I know baseball,” Buck said. “Baseball’s my life. It always has been.”

And talk of age just makes Buck smile.

“Since I’ve got this job (with CBS), every story I read includes my age,” Buck said. “I’m at the point now that when I answer the phone, I say, ‘Buck 65.”’

To make a point, Buck, after completing his first assignment for CBS with Tim McCarver on a Saturday in Pittsburgh, caught a quick flight and arrived just in time to do the first two innings of the Philadelphia-St. Louis game that night.

“I wasn’t making a statement,” Buck insisted. “I was just in town, and what else are you going to do in Philly? It was either Bookbinder’s or the ballpark.”

Still, it was dutifully noted that the old man wasn’t going to take the easy road.

And the road has been long for Buck.

Including this weekend’s three-game series with the Giants, Buck estimates that he has broadcast more than 6,500 baseball games.

“Just missed one, and that was because the plane couldn’t land,” Buck said. “I’ve never missed a game because of health. Hell, there’s no reason to. You’ve got a minute between innings to throw up.”

His resume shows his career starting in 1950, with minor-league ball in Columbus, Ohio.

But his play-by-play career started much earlier than that.

“Growing up in Cleveland during the Depression, we didn’t have a dime,” Buck said. “We didn’t have a car or bikes. All we could afford to do was play baseball. ... My dad was a hell of a ballplayer, once pitched a perfect game in high school in Holyoke, Mass.

“He taught us the game. And I used to do a little play-by-play as we played: ‘Buck drops back. Buck drops ball.’ I wasn’t much good. My father traded me for a son to be born later.”

His announcing interest took him to Cleveland Municipal Stadium, where he and his first broadcast partners, his two brothers, would find a spot in the bleachers and announce Indians games to each other.

“Those were great times,” Buck recalled. “I saw DiMaggio’s (56-game hitting) streak end in 1941. I used to listen to the broadcasts out of Chicago and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and I’d say, ‘I can do that.”’

After high school, he worked as a cook, a porter, a salesman and as a deckhand on an iron-ore boat on the Great Lakes.

He was drafted into World War II and won the Purple Heart when he was wounded.

After the service, he graduated from Ohio State and got the job with the Columbus Red Birds. He was called up to St. Louis in 1954.

In St. Louis, he teamed with the legendary Harry Caray for 16 summers.

And they were memorable times.

During the late ‘60s, Buck and Caray started having too much fun.

Several times during games, one of the announcers would drop in a commercial: “Hey, fans, it’s time to pop yourself a cold Busch.” And in the background, you could hear the “wooosh” of a can being opened.

“You had to be careful,” Buck said. “If you popped a Busch or a Budweiser in the eighth and it went extra innings, you’d be into a six-pack by the 17th. It’s OK to have a beer during the game, but don’t start too early.”

Caray didn’t heed Buck’s advice and was fired before the 1970 season.

But Buck is into his second quarter-century at the mike in Busch Stadium. And he has seen the changes -- some good and some not so good.

“Everything about the game has changed,” Buck said, “especially the money. Hell, I’m making more money than Stan Musial ever hoped to make. I think that’s great for today’s players.”

Buck did the first national telecast of the old American Football League. He has done Super Bowls and World Series. He has done bowling and wrestling -- on radio, no less. And when we couldn’t take Howard Cosell on “Monday Night Football,” we tuned in Buck and partner Hank Stram on CBS Radio.

But 40 years on the road wasn’t possible without sacrifices. His wife has raised eight children in St. Louis, mostly on her own.

“Sometimes you stop and wonder,” Buck mused. “I remember sitting in Green Bay one Sunday doing a football game. It was 15 below, and I said to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ But once you’ve worked on an assembly line, you know why.”

Still, the travel is part of what he loves the best.

“I still love to come to California,” Buck said. “I’m two hours younger for a while.”

It’s Friday night at Candlestick Park, and Buck is planning Saturday’s itinerary.

“It’s a day game tomorrow,” he said, gleefully. “That means dinner at the Washington Square Bar & Grill. I look forward to that.

“I used to have a friend in Sausalito. He’d take me out on his boat. Take me to Candlestick and pick me up after the game. We’d go out at midnight, out under the Golden Gate Bridge. I love coming out here.”

And back home, the siblings have followed in his footsteps.

One son, 21-year-old Joe, does play-by-play for the University of Louisville Cardinals. A daughter, Christine, does the weather on Channel 11 in St. Louis. Daughter Bonnie does radio in Chicago.

Busy schedules often separate the Buck family. But they were together for one August day in 1987, when Buck was enshrined into the announcer’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“It was the most wonderful moment of my life,” Buck recalled. “All of them were there. When I started in this crazy business back in 1950, it was the furthest thing from my mind. And it dawned on me then that it all went so fast.”

In all of Buck’s travels, there is still something he has yet to experience, though he is in no hurry.

“One thing about having eight kids,” Buck said. “It’s going to be a hell of a funeral.”

It already has been a hell of a life.