[CARDINALRULES]

Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Buck dies
Jun 19, 2002 2:00 AM (EDT)  

By R.B. FALLSTROM

ST. LOUIS (AP) - 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 surgically removed. He never left the hospital. He was 77.

"He had a great life," Joe Buck said. "He didn't waste one minute of one day. He did everything he could. He packed two lifetimes into one lifetime. He went from poor to wealthy in his lifetime yet he never changed."

On May 16, Buck underwent another operation to eradicate a series of infections, including pneumonia, that kept recurring, and was placed on kidney dialysis. Joe Buck said his father died at 11:08 p.m., with his family by his side.

"He continued to fight to his last breath," Joe Buck said. "He made us proud every day. He battled for his life. He did it with dignity and with pride."

Jack Buck started calling Cardinals games on radio in 1954, teaming first with Harry Caray. Nationally, Buck called everything 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 Los Angeles outfielder Kirk Gibson, barely able to walk, hit a two-run, game-winning homer off Oakland's Dennis Eckersley.

Buck was also behind the microphone for the first telecast of the American Football League and at the NFL championship "Ice Bowl" in 1967.

(AP) Jack Buck, center, the radio voice of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, walks past Cardinals'...
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But in St. Louis and throughout the Midwest, it was Buck's calls of Cardinals games that made him a beloved figure. With each final out of a Cardinals victory, he wrapped things up with his tidy, "That's a winner."

"There only is and always will be just one Jack Buck," said former Cardinal Jack Clark. "He's a Hall of Fame announcer and a Hall of Fame person. He was in the game when it was at its purest. His calls of Stan Musial, (Bob) Gibson, Ozzie (Smith) and all the way up to Mark McGwire are classics. He was a class man and a class human being."

It was Buck who told Cardinals fans to "Go crazy, folks, go crazy!" when Smith homered - his first ever left-handed - to win Game 5 of the 1985 NL Championship Series.

Buck chose to pause - not speak - when slugger Mark McGwire tied Roger Maris' single-season home run record in 1998. Then, he said, "Pardon me for a moment while I stand and applaud."

"It was a thrill just to be interviewed by the man and sit down and talk to him," Arizona ace Curt Schilling said. "He was living baseball history."

(AP) St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck smiles prior to the game against the San Francisco Giants...
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John Francis Buck was born Aug. 21, 1924, in Holyoke, Mass. He left home as a teen-ager to work as a deck hand on the iron ore boats of the Great Lakes and was drafted into the Army at 19 during the height of World War II.

Buck shipped out for Europe in February 1945 and was wounded the next month in Germany. Back home a year later, Buck went to Ohio State and launched his broadcasting career at the school's radio station.

"When I went on the air to do a sports show at WOSU, I had never done a sports show before," Buck wrote in "That's a Winner," his autobiography. "When I did a basketball game, it was the first time I ever did play-by-play. The same with football. I didn't know how to do these things. I just did them."

In 1954, Buck beat out Chick Hearn - who went on to become an institution with the Los Angeles Lakers - for a job with the Cardinals.

Buck left the Cardinals booth for a year in 1960, instead working for ABC. He later had a falling out with the network, which led him to not return a phone call that could have landed him the first play-by-play role on the network's "Monday Night Football."

(AP) Hall-of-fame broadcaster Jack Buck interviews St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa at Busch...
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Instead, he called Monday night games and 17 Super Bowls on CBS radio from 1978-1996.

In 1990, Buck began a two-year stint as lead baseball announcer for CBS. All the while, Buck continued to call Cardinals games. He was joined in the booth by his son, Joe, in 1991. Joe Buck is now the lead baseball and football play-by-play announcer at Fox.

Buck often read his poetry work on the air and, on occasion, to crowds. When baseball resumed last year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Buck, a tear in his eye, read a patriotic poem during a pregame ceremony at Busch Stadium.

Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame's broadcaster's wing in 1987, Buck later became a member of both the Broadcasters' and Radio halls of fame. He was awarded the Pete Rozelle Award by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996 and received a lifetime achievement Emmy in 2000.

Buck, who had six children with his first wife Alyce, and two with wife Carole, is survived by his second wife; sons Jack Jr., Dan, and Joe; and daughters Beverly, Christine, Bonnie, Betsy and Julie.

(AP) Hall-of-fame broadcaster Jack Buck interviews St. Louis Cardinals' Albert Pujols at Busch Stadium...
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A public viewing of Buck's casket will be held Thursday at Busch Stadium, starting at 7 a.m. A public memorial service will follow at 12:30 p.m., with the Cardinals' game against the Anaheim Angels pushed back to 3:10 p.m.

[CARDINALRULES]

To the ass that decided to add the Keywords SOCCER RULES and WHOGIVESACRAP ...well I won't bother to write what I am thinking but you can guess.

Nice way to talk about a man that earned a Purple Heart and was a Patriot.

[barker]

Used to live in Chicago years ago. Always looked forward the Cubs/Cards games. Jack Buck was a class act.

Here is his poem he read on Sept. 17th.

Since this nation was founded under
God, more than 200 years ago,

We've been the bastion of
Freedom...

The light which keeps the free world
Aglow.

We do not covet the possesions of
Others, we are blessed with the
Bounty we share.

We have rushed to help other
Nations...anything...anytime...
Anywhere.

War is just not our nature... we
Won't start, but we will end the fight.

If we are involved we shall be
Resolved to protect what we know is
Right.

We've been challenged by a
Cowardly foe who strikes and then
Hides from our view.

With one voice we say there's no
Choice today, there is only one
Thing to do.

Everyone is saying the same thing
And praying that we end these
Senseless moments we are living.

As our fathers did before, we shall
Win this unwanted war.

And our children will enjoy the
Future, we'll be giving.

[CARDINALRULES]

Buck gets first of Busch Stadium tributes
Jun 19, 2002 7:59 PM (EDT)

By R.B. FALLSTROM

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Jack Buck, the revered voice of the St. Louis Cardinals, is going to get the biggest baseball send-off since Babe Ruth.

For 4½ hours on Thursday, the team will hold a public viewing of Buck's closed casket at home plate at Busch Stadium. The 77-year-old broadcaster died late Tuesday night after being hospitalized more than 5½ months.

"He's a Cardinal," said Red Schoendienst, one of the team's six living Hall of Famers. "If he was a ballplayer, with his timing, he'd probably have been a .400 hitter."

Buck's broadcasting colleagues across the country agreed.

"He became a fabric of the St. Louis society, as (Vin) Scully is in Los Angeles and (Ernie) Harwell is in Detroit," said Reds Hall of Fame voice Marty Brennaman. "Those guys were there so long that they became bigger than any player on that team.

"I had someone say to me, 'Stan Musial's the greatest Cardinal of them all.' I said no he's not, because there are generations of people who have listened to the Cardinals that don't even know who Stan Musial is. They know who Jack Buck is because he's been there through the bad times and the good times."

Baseball hasn't had a comparable ballpark ceremony since the Yankees held a two-day visitation for Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium in 1948 with hundreds of thousands of people paying their respects. Manager Tony La Russa, a close friend of Buck during his seven years with the team, approved of the treatment.

"I think it's real appropriate," La Russa said. "I'm sure there are going to be a lot of people here and a lot of people that wished they were here. He's the greatest Cardinal."

The team also carved the initials "JFB" in the grass just beyond the center field wall and again behind second base. And the bronze bust of Buck at the microphone outside the stadium became a shrine crammed with homemade cards, baseball hats, toy animals, balloons, old framed photographs of Buck and even a transistor radio tuned to KMOX - the Cardinals' flagship station. Black bunting hung over the statue, alongside an American flag.

On the dugout wall, reserve outfielder and St. Louis native Kerry Robinson and a clubhouse attendant taped Buck's signature signoff, "That's a Winner!" in tiny strips.

In pregame ceremonies Wednesday, there was a moment of silence for Buck followed by Taps, a video tribute and speeches by team majority owner Bill DeWitt and broadcaster Joe Buck.

"Words are hard to come by," Buck said of his father. "He would have loved to be with us tonight and I kind feel like he is."

DeWitt said Buck would be added to the list of the team's retired numbers, represented by a plaque and a flag carrying the words, "That's a Winner!"

Buck, who in more than five decades as a broadcaster rose from Harry Caray's sidekick to a St. Louis institution, died after a long battle with various ailments. He had been hospitalized since Jan. 3, about a month after undergoing surgery for lung cancer.

On May 16, Buck underwent another operation to eradicate a series of recurring infections, including pneumonia, and was placed on dialysis. Joe Buck, who announced the death of his father on KMOX late Tuesday, said Jack Buck died with his family by his side.

"He made us proud every day," his son said. "He battled for his life."

Buck quickly connected with players. Second baseman Fernando Vina, who came to the Cardinals in a 2000 trade with the Brewers, remembers Buck giving him a special silver dollar after he hit his first home run with his new team.

"He gave me one for good luck, and I always kept it with me," Vina said. "Now, I just save it in a good place and know he gave it to me. Jack, he had that special aura."

Center fielder Jim Edmonds, who also joined the team in 2000, said Buck belonged on "another tier" of people.

"It's like the president, the pope, whatever you want to call it," Edmonds said. "It's like losing somebody like that."

Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully said he'll miss Buck's sense of humor the most.

"He was a gruff-voiced guy with a big heart," Scully said. "I can understand why the people of St. Louis and throughout the Midwest especially loved him and put him on the highest pedestal."

Buck began calling Cardinals games on radio in 1954, teaming first with Caray. Nationally, Buck called Super Bowls, World Series and even pro bowling for CBS, ABC and NBC.

Buck was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster's wing in 1987. He later became a member of both the broadcasters and radio halls of fame. He was awarded the Pete Rozelle Award by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996 and received a lifetime achievement Emmy in 2000.

Buck, who had six children with his first wife Alyce, and two with wife Carole, is survived by his second wife; sons Jack Jr., Dan and Joe; and daughters Beverly, Christine, Bonnie, Betsy and Julie.