Broadcaster Jack Buck Dies at 77

Jack Buck, who in nearly five decades as a broadcaster became a St. Louis institution and one of the most recognizable voices in sports, died late Tuesday night, his son Joe Buck said.

The Hall of Famer underwent lung cancer surgery Dec. 5, then went back in Barnes-Jewish Hospital Jan. 3 to have an intestinal blockage removed. He never left the hospital. He was 77.

“We miss him already,” Joe Buck said on KMOX radio, where his father worked for many years. “But I’ve been missing him for months.”

Jack Buck started calling Cardinal games on radio in 1954, teaming first with Harry Caray and for the last three decades with former Cardinal third baseman Mike Shannon.

Nationally, Buck called everything from Super Bowls to the World Series to pro bowling for CBS, ABC and NBC.

“I wouldn’t change a thing about my life,” Buck wrote in a 1997 autobiography. “My childhood dreams came true.”

Buck’s gravelly voice--crafted in part, he said, by too many years smoking cigarettes--described to a national radio audience the indescribable end to Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

“I don’t believe what I just saw!” he yelled after Dodger outfielder Kirk Gibson, barely able to walk, hit a two-run, game-winning homer off Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley.

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A complete obituary will run in Thursday’s editions.