Instead of Musburger, Michaels, Job Passes to Buck : Baseball: St. Louis announcer appears to be a popular choice for the No. 1 national play-by-play position.

Jack Buck, who told a reporter he’d meet him at 5 o’clock in the executive lobby at Busch Stadium, showed up precisely on time.

“Come on,” Buck said. “I’ll show you around.”

The tour included introductions to everyone--receptionists, players, secretaries, St. Louis Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog, a state senator, the elevator operator, an Anheuser-Busch vice president.

Everyone got exactly the same courteous greeting from Buck, except for a stadium worker’s baby, who got a pat on the head.

The word nice is often overused when talking about people in the public eye. A celebrity who simply observes normal courtesies is invariably labeled nice.

But Jack Buck seems nice by any standards. And he’s a celebrity, too. At least in the Midwest.

He has been a St. Louis sportscaster since 1954. His Cardinal broadcasts go out over powerful, 50,000-watt KMOX, plus a 120-station radio network that can be heard from east of the Rockies to the Appalachians, and in parts of the Deep South as well.

The Cardinals have a huge following, and Buck is as responsible as Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, Herzog or anyone else.

Buck is as big in St. Louis as Vin Scully and Chick Hearn are in Los Angeles, maybe bigger.

Buck has worked for all three television networks, although he may be best known for his CBS Radio work on Monday night football games with Hank Stram.

Now, at 65, he has the No. 1 announcing job in baseball, inheriting it shortly after CBS fired Brent Musburger.

Buck moved from CBS-TV’s No. 2 announcing team with newcomer Jim Kaat to the No. 1 team with veteran Tim McCarver.

“I hope to prove my approach works on a national level,” he said.

Besides doing Saturday telecasts, which resumed after a seven-week hiatus last weekend, Buck will work the All-Star game, a playoff series and the World Series.

He was concerned that CBS would hire Al Michaels to replace him, and back he’d go to the No. 2 team. But Michaels and ABC reached a settlement June 6 and Buck appears to be on solid ground.

According to Musburger, Buck has him to thank for being involved in CBS’ baseball coverage in the first place.

“I recommended him,” Musburger said.

Musburger said he’d also have accepted the No. 2 job behind Buck, had CBS chosen to go that route.

“Certainly, that would have been OK,” he said. “Jack Buck is a Hall-of-Fame baseball announcer. He’s been around the game his whole life.”

Buck was inducted to the announcer’s wing of the baseball Hall of Fame in 1987.

Ask anyone in St. Louis--cab drivers, waitresses, anyone--and they’ll tell you what a great guy Buck is.

Al Baker, who owns one of Buck’s favorite St. Louis restaurants, said: “When someone comes over to his table to ask for an autograph, he’ll get up and go back to the person’s table to introduce himself and shake hands with everyone at the table.”

Said Buck: “I like people, it’s as simple as that. I like meeting people.”

Asked if he ever tires of autograph seekers, he said: “Nah, not really. My wife does, but not me.”

Good manners are important to Buck.

“Whenever I speak at a college or to young people, I work in the importance of good manners,” he said.

If he sees a young player he doesn’t know, his approach is: “May I introduce myself?” It leaves quite an impression.

Said Scott St. James, former Channel 9 sportscaster who once worked with Buck on an afternoon show on KMOX: “Even though I was billed as a co-host of that show, I thought of myself as the wet-behind-the-ears kid who was being thrown into the same room with a legend.

“I mean, I idolized this man, so in the beginning I did my best to stay out of his way. He kept drawing me in and including me (on the show) more, and when he became too involved with Monday night football, I remained on the show as a solo act.”

NBC’s Joel Meyers, another former KMOX employee, said: “I’ve never met anybody as honest as Jack Buck. There is no kinder individual, no one as down to earth, no one as void of ego.

“In this business, it’s nice to see someone who treats the little guy exactly the way he treats someone important.”

NBC’s Bob Costas is yet another former KMOX staffer, and Costas still has a home in St. Louis. He showed up there at the age of 22, fresh out of Syracuse University, to announce the basketball Spirits of St. Louis and got to know Buck.

“It took a little while to win his respect,” Costas said. “I was this precocious character with a baby face.

“But once he saw I was a hard-working guy and my philosophies were more in line with those of the old-timers, everything was fine.

“There’s no question he’s one of the better baseball announcers in the country.

“His call of Ozzie Smith’s game-winning homer in the 1985 playoffs against the Dodgers--’Go crazy, folks, go crazy’--was one of the great calls of all time. It would only have worked on a local broadcast, but that was the beauty of it.”

Two days after Smith’s homer, Jack Clark hit one out at Dodger Stadium against Tom Niedenfuer.

Said Buck on the air: “Swing and a long one into left field! Adios! Goodby! That’s the winner.”

Scully’s national TV call of “She’s gone” on Kirk Gibson’s homer in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series is a good one, but so was Buck’s on CBS Radio.

“I don’t believe what I just saw!” he bellowed.

Said Costas: “The more exposure he gets, the more people throughout the nation will understand that he belongs on any list of all-time baseball announcers.”

KMOX alumni also include Harry Caray, Joe Garagiola, Dan Dierdorf, Jay Randolph and Bob Starr. Buck credits the station’s longtime general manager, Bob Hyland, with an ability to spot good talent and develop it. His son, Bob Hyland Jr., is the general manager at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles.

During his first 16 years with the Cardinals, Buck was a backup to Caray. Garagiola worked with them from 1955 through ‘63, and has a lot of respect for Buck.

“I’m not so sure Buck shouldn’t have been the No. 1 guy (at CBS) in the first place,” Garagiola said. “Before they made a decision, I thought, ‘Hey, they got the perfect guy.’ Jack is very talented, witty and one of the quickest guys in the country.

“As for his age, he’s going through what I was going through. I kept seeing my age after my name--Garagiola, 62--when things were up in the air for me at NBC.”

Garagiola, who quit NBC after 27 years in November of 1988, was recently rehired as a co-host of the “Today” show.

Buck has said he saw his age after his name so often that he began answering the phone, “Buck 65.”

Garagiola said, “Satchel Paige, one of my heroes, used to say, ‘How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?’ “Well, I don’t think it matters how old Jack Buck is. He’s a tremendous baseball announcer.

“As for his lack of high profile, let him work the All-Star game and World Series, and that will take care of that.”

Curt Smith, a speech writer for President Bush and the author of the outstanding baseball book, “Voices of the Game,” said: “When they cast Musburger overboard, I applauded. Jack Buck is so much better, one of the finest announcers in baseball history.”

Buck said his philosophy on life is: “Do a good job, have a good time, and get along with people. I like people to like me, and I work at it.”

And Buck doesn’t mind sharing the spotlight, something, he said, Caray wasn’t very good at. “I was lucky if I got to do more than an inning,” Buck said of the old days.

These days, Buck treats Mike Shannon, his partner since 1972, as an equal. During a recent extra-inning game, Shannon called the last few innings.

“Hey, it’s a close game,” Buck said. “What do I care? I’ve done everything there is to do. Why not give the other guy a chance?”

Being liked is almost as important to him as his family, which includes eight children.

Buck has been married twice, 22 years the first time, and 20 so far the second. He had six children by his first wife, Alice, and two by his 48-year-old second wife, Carole.

His oldest offspring, Beverly Brennan, 41, has been a high school teacher for 18 years. His youngest, Julie, is a high school senior.

“Julie will be the eighth I’ll send to college,” Buck said proudly.

One daughter, Christine, works as a news anchor in St. Louis. Another, Bonnie, works for a Chicago radio station. And his son Joe, 21, is a play-by-play announcer for the minor league Louisville Redbirds.

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

Asked if Buck is really as good a guy as he appears to be, Brennan said with a smile, “He really is.”

She said Buck even gets along with his former wife: “My Mom and Dad have a great relationship.” Buck is also generous with his time. If you need a celebrity for a charitable shindig, ask Jack. He helped raise $1 million for cystic fibrosis last year.

One year, he figured, he did more than 350 banquets, often two a day. “I was going all the time in the early days--Optimists, Kiwanis, Lions Club.”

In Smith’s book, Buck is quoted as saying, “What a racket this business is. You golf, swim, shoot pool during the day, go to the park and BS with the manager and players a little before the game, do the game, BS some more, and go home. It’s tough, real tough.”

Buck was born in Holyoke, Mass., but his family moved to Cleveland when he was 15. His father died shortly afterward, and Buck had to support the family.

Buck worked at all kinds of jobs--as a cook, porter, salesman, deckhand on an iron-ore boat on the Great Lakes. He worked on assembly lines, and he pumped gas.

“We’d pump gas, wipe windows and say, ‘Have a nice day,’ ” Buck said, indicating his penchant for good manners goes way back.

He served in World War II, taking some shrapnel in his left arm while crossing the Remagen Bridge over the Rhine into Germany in March of 1945. Years later, he learned that fellow announcer Lindsey Nelson also was at the Remagen Bridge, and also was wounded in the left arm.

“That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?” Buck said.

After the war, Buck went to Ohio State and in 1950 got his first announcing job in Columbus, Ohio, doing the minor league club there, the Columbus Redbirds. Three years later, he became the voice of the Rochester (N.Y.) Red Wings, another Cardinal farm club.

“The guy I replaced in Rochester got fired after he got up at a dinner and told a dirty story,” Buck said.

After a year in Rochester, he got the job he’d wanted since he was a kid--announcing major league baseball--when the Cardinals hired him.

He was fired by the Cardinals after the 1959 season, to make room for Buddy Blattner.

Buck got a job doing ABC’s game of the week--all three networks were doing baseball then--but when Blattner moved on to the Angels and Southern California the next year, Buck was back with the Cardinals.

He left the team during the 1975 season to join NBC and become the host of a new show, “Grandstand,” but after seven months was replaced by Lee Leonard and a young sportscaster from Los Angeles named Bryant Gumbel.

This time, it was back to the Cardinals for good.

“I’ll always have this job,” he said. “I can’t lose here.”