[BluesDuke]

OK, so I am posting my own essay. But somehow America does not quite feel like America without Jack Buck somewhere broadcasting a baseball game. Much as it did not quite feel like America when we lost such as Red Barber, Red Smith, Bob Prince, Jim Murray, and Jimmy Cannon; and, as it will not quite feel when we lose (many years hence, we should pray devoutly) Vin Scully, Thomas Boswell, Bob Murphy, Roger Angell, and Ernie Harwell...

[BluesDuke]

...I hope to God, too, that someone at Mr. Buck's memorial service thinks to offer him what he so appropriately offered Mark McGwire that night: a valedictory salute of Pardon us, while we stand up and applaud. He earned such tribute if anyone did.

[hole_n_one]

Nice tribute, BD.

I came across this column by SI's Rick Reilly......it's somewhat dated but nonetheless it is still another fine tribute to a broadcasting legend......

The Spirit of St. Louis

Click here for more on this story

Posted: Tuesday May 01, 2001 5:48 PM

Promise me one thing. Promise that at the end of this you won't feel sorry for Jack Buck.

As square as a pan of corn bread, as American as a red Corvette, Buck has been doing what he loves in the St. Louis Cardinals' radio booth for 47 years, which makes him just about the exact center of this country. The last thing he wants is sympathy.

Yeah, Buck has Parkinson's disease, which makes his hands tremble and his arms flail. He also has diabetes, which means poking needles into himself twice a day. He also has a pacemaker. And cataracts. And vertigo. And excruciatingly painful sciatica. And a box of pills the size of a toaster. But all that only gives him more material to work with.

"I wish I'd get Alzheimer's," he cracks. "Then I could forget I've got all the other stuff."

Luckily, you can still find the 76-year-old Buck at the mike during every St. Louis home game, broadcasting to the Cardinal Nation over more than 100 radio stations in 11 states. Herking and jerking in his seat, his face contorting this way and that, he still sends out the most wonderful descriptions of games you've ever heard.

"I've given the Cardinals the best years of my life," Buck says. "Now I'm giving them the worst."

That's a lie. Despite enough diseases to kill a moose, Buck has gotten even better lately. "I have no idea how," says his son and radio partner, Joe, "but his voice has been stronger lately. It's like he's pouring every ounce of energy God can give him into those three hours of the broadcast."

Yet Buck makes it all sound effortless, like talking baseball with the guy across the backyard fence. He's natural, simple and unforgettable. When Kirk Gibson hit his dramatic home run for the Los Angeles Dodgers and limped around the bases in the 1988 World Series, Buck, calling the game for CBS Radio, said, "I don't believe what I just saw!" When St. Louis's Ozzie Smith hit a rare lefthanded home run in Game 5 of the 1985 playoffs, Buck said, "Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!" When Mark McGwire hit No. 61 in 1998, Buck said, "Pardon me while I stand and applaud!"

Like thousands of other eight-year-old boys in Middle America in 1966, all I had of baseball most nights was Buck. If I fiddled enough with my mom's old radio in our kitchen in Boulder, Colo., I could pick up Buck doing the Cardinals' games on KMOX. Bob Gibson. Tim McCarver. Curt Flood. I worshiped Buck then. I respect him now.

He was a kid whose family couldn't afford toothpaste; who didn't go to the dentist until he was 15 (and immediately had five teeth pulled); who worked as a soda jerk, a newspaper hawk, a boat painter, a waiter, a factory hand; who was the first person in his family to own a car; who took shrapnel in an arm and a leg from the Germans in World War II; who danced in Paris on V-E Day.

This is a man who is coming up on his 10,000th game broadcast; who was in the stands the day that Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak ended; who called Stan Musial's five-home-run doubleheader; who ate dinner with Rocky Marciano in Havana; whom Jesse Owens called friend; who survived the Ice Bowl -- and 16 years in the booth with Harry Caray.

I would eat a bathtub full of rubber chicken just to hear him emcee a banquet. He has more lines than the DMV. If an Italian woman wins the door prize, Buck says, "You know, I've always had a fondness for Italian women. In fact, during World War II an Italian woman hid me in her basement for three months. [Pause.] Of course, this was in Cleveland."

If anything, Parkinson's has given Buck more banquet material. "I shook hands with Muhammad Ali recently," he says. "It took them 30 minutes to get us untangled."

This may be Buck's last year behind the mike, so he's savoring every inning. So should we. "This is his victory lap," says Joe. "This is him circling the outfield."

That lousy day is coming, of course, when he opens his mouth and the Parkinson's won't let anything come out. But don't feel sorry for him. "Hell, I've touched so many bases," says Buck, "I've got no quarrel with these last few."

So, on the day he quits, he'll have to pardon us while we stand and applaud.

Issue date: May 5, 2001

[hobbes1]

That Having been said.... (Fehr sits on the board of the U.S. Olympic Committee, which send to the Phantom Zone competitors caught using cold remedies if certain ingredients just so happen to be even a minor part of the mix, but he runs the Major League Baseball Players' Association on the plank that steroid testing - which a continually rising number of players favour, perhaps to his chagrin - deserves no address beyond collective bargaining, unless "real" health/safety issues arise.)

I loathe Fehr....BUT...don't kid yourself, the Olympics is anything BUT clean. Clearing Times, and Masking agents....The Hypocrisy of the IOC makes MLB look like Judge Landis is still in charge....

[socal_parrot]

I think for most American males over 40, there is a childhood memory of listening to a familiar voice call a baseball game on a warm summer's night. My voice was Dick Enberg calling Angel games with Don Drysdale. Enberg's signature phrase after an Angel's win was, "and the Halo shines tonight".

One of my favorite Jack Buck calls that you didn't mention was from I believe the 85 NLCS when Ozzie Smith hit a home run off of Tom Niedenfuhr(?) of the Dodgers. "Go crazy folks! Go crazy!"

[Charles Henrickson]

I was at the Cardinals-Angels game last night here in St. Louis, and there was a ceremony to honor Jack Buck before the game. Then they played video tributes on the scoreboard between innings. Today there was a memorial service at Busch Stadium. (The Angels graciously consented to let the start time be pushed back to accomodate, even theough it's their getaway day.) They had the casket at home plate since early this morning for people to file past and pay their respects.

It's amazing the impact Jack Buck had on this city. He was probably St. Louis's most well-known and best loved citizen. For almost fify years he was a big part of this community, and not just broadcasting baseball games. Jack Buck was very involved in his community, very generous, very down-to-earth. The service personnel--the "little people"--at ballparks, restaurants, hotels, etc., all around the country loved him, because he was so generous and friendly. Buck was extremely witty, a terrific sense of humor, a great storyteller. And he was a great American, very patriotic, a man who served his country well in battle.

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, it's nothing but Jack Buck on TV, radio, and newspapers here in St. Louis. Well deserved.

[xp38]

I used to listen to him here in Toronto on clear nights. One of the greats without a doubt...I don't know if he is in the hall of fame as a broadcaster but if he isn't he should be. It's a shame he will miss Ozzie's induction this year.