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Interviewing Joe Buck
About two weeks after the end of our tour, Joe Buck was in Los Angeles to film a commercial for Bud Light. He invited me out to interview him at Dodger Stadium. When I arrived, I found him quickly at his Starwagon (where the talent hang out between takes) and he graciously shook my hand. We went up to one of the media booths in the stadium and had the following conversation.
RC:
I read in your bio that you’ve been calling professional games since 1989. Is that right?
JB:
That’s right. I’ve been calling games for most of my adult life and I’ve been going to games since I was about zero and a half.
RC:
Tell me about the first game you remember as a kid.
JB:
First game I remember as a kid...I remember because it was a traumatic experience. I was in the back of the booth, sitting with my mom -- I think I was three, maybe four. I was in the back of the booth. My dad and Mike Shannon are broadcasting the game down below. And as they’re doing the game I knocked a Coke over on top of them as they broadcast the game. And they turned around and looked at me and -- it was just their natural reaction. I burst into tears. They had a good laugh at it. They had to take a shower after that, but they had a good laugh and I had an experience that I will never forget.
RC:
Baseball for you had to be everyday life growing up.
JB:
Yeah, I got a chance to start broadcasting professionally in this business when I was 19 and the reason is it was really just an extension of the same life I’d been leading since I could remember. All I really did was change seats. I used to sit down there next to my dad and Mike Shannon with no microphone in front of it and I moved to the seat next to them with the microphone in front of it. It just felt natural. I’ve been around ball parks, I’ve been in clubhouses, I’ve been around big league players. From a personal standpoint it felt really natural making that jump.
RC:
Since you’ve been around the game that long, can you tell me why baseball matters to America? The love affair seems to have shifted.
JB:
I think baseball still is the national past time. And I work in both Major League Baseball and the NFL and the NFL can’t wait to show you all the numbers about how the ratings are “this” and it blows away baseball. But all I needed to know was in 2001 after 9/11, to be in New York, to do a World Series, to have those moments to have it be something to take everyone’s mind -- for a brief while -- off these really scary times in our country’s history -- told me all I needed to know. Baseball was still there. Baseball was still alive and willing to be a diversion and powerful enough to be a diversion just for those few hours to make people -- especially in New York -- to kind of set that aside and enjoy the sport.
RC:
And why is that? Why does baseball have that hold on America like that?
JB:
I just think it’s history. When you have history that is passed on from generation to generation; when a grandfather can tell a son and a grandson about seeing Willie Mays and the way he used to go back and catch a fly ball in center field to a kid who’s watching Ken Griffey Jr. do it in 2004, that is what makes it a fun game. There’s no sport that has a love for it’s history like Major League Baseball. You can name all the big record holders in baseball. I don’t care what they say about the NFL, you can’t tell me who has the touchdown record, who has the passing record, who has the -- it’s just not that type of sport. It’s more for the here and now. Major League Baseball is history, not only to do with this country but within families. It bridges generations.
RC:
So you mention baseball as a great diversion in the sense of 9/11 and the history of it -- I should preface this by saying, I went to the Negro League Museum in Kansas City and they drew a correlation I never thought about before in these terms, but he said Jackie Robinson really set the table for Martin Luther King. Do you think that’s fair?
JB:
Well I think you could definitely go back through the history of baseball and look at the Jackie Robinson situation and see where it parallels and mirrors what was going on in American life. Whether it’s the introduction of the African American athlete into clubhouses, suffering all they suffered on Major League Baseball fields from the fans and, not just their opponents, but their teammates as well, I’m sure parallels the struggles that was going on in every day life in jobs across the country. This just happened to be in the spotlight. So I think there’s definitely a correlation there. And I think baseball has that distinction more than any other sport.
RC:
Did you play baseball?
JB:
I played in high school. I was good in high school. I went to college, went to Indiana, was walking on and dislocated my pitching shoulder. Two consecutive pitches and...the good thing is it didn’t crush a dream because I was realistic. I knew I wasn’t good enough to get to the Major League level. I think the only thing it did do was give me an appreciation for how good these guys really are. And when you sit back as a broadcaster or as a fan and you see a guy mistake or an error or a guy strikes out with the bases loaded and nobody out and you say, “How can that happen?” -- when you have some idea of how hard it is, and I don’t pretend to know anymore than the next guy, I think I appreciate it that much more -- how good they are.
RC:
Do you think that works for you as an announcer, too? You seem to have an everyman’s approach.
JB:
Yeah. Two things: First of all, when my dad drove me down to Lousiville to start my professional career in 1989 he said, “You know you’ve grown up watching Major League Baseball, watching Major League players play this game. Realize, now, you’re going to the minor leagues and you’re going to see some guys that aren’t Major League quality and unless you feel that you could have made the play 10 times out of 10 times, you can’t be overly critical.” You can’t lie to the crowd, to the audience, but you can’t get on these guys. That’s part one. Part two is my opinon’s no different than anyone else’s. I mean in this day and age of talk radio and a sea of highlights and reruns and games that are on night after night, my opinion’s no more valuable than the next guy. And I appreciate everyone’s opinion and I try to state mine without being too forceful about it or beating you over the head with it. So I appreciate everyone’s opinion and I think that people who really respect this game that are in it appreciate the everyday man’s or woman’s opinion just as much as their own.
RC:
What do you think your dad taught you about the game and what it means to life?
JB:
My dad taught me a lot of things about the game and very little of it has to do with the actual calling of a broadcast -- Ball one, strike two... It’s more about how to act as a person, how to treat people the right way. It’s how to go through life being a semi-celebrity in his case -- or a celebrity full-on and treating everybody equally. From day one I saw my father treat the lady who runs the elevator at Busch stadium the same as he would treat his boss coming in to talk to him about the broadcast. And if you have that attitude and that approach I think it’ll serve you well, not just as a broadcaster but as a human being. I think it was good to see him achieve the kind of success that he achieved and then to see how he handled it and didn’t change. he treated everyone, when they came up to shake his hand, as an important person. That’s just the way he was consistently.
RC:
Does baseball, as a game itself, have life lessons for fans or for you as a broadcaster?
JB:
Yeah. Not to get too philosophical about it but I think any fan who’s hanging on every pitch and watches as your favorite player on your favorite team strikes out with a chance to win the game, you go to bed thinking about it, you wake up the next day thinking about it. But then, the next day, the best part about it is there’s a game the next night. You go right back to it. Last night’s game is a distant memory and now you’re living for the here and now. And I think there’s something there to be learned about life. You have your expectations up about something and it doesn’t come through and you can’t just give in. You just pick up the next day and move on. I think there’s a good lesson in that. There’s something about the every day nature of baseball, the rising and falling of it, the long trek through the season from spring training hopefully through the end of the playoffs, I think you can learn a lot about life from.
RC:
When was your dad diagnosed with Parkinson’s?
JB:
He passed away when he was about to turn 78 and I would say and he lived with it, with us being aware of it, for I’d say nine or ten years. Everybody’s story is different with the symptoms and how the symptoms are handled and how the medication treats the symptoms. I just know that he lived with it for a long time, lived with it for a long time in the public eye and if there’s anything I take away from my dad’s example in that end of it was that it didn’t slow him down. Yes he had tremors. Yes it took him longer to sign autographs. There were times where he really didn’t feel that great. He was dealing with a lot of other things besides just Parkinson’s, but, he still was the same person. And he wasn’t too proud to have his hand shake as he signed an autograph for somebody or have that stop him. He was probably more active when he was 77 than when he was 67. And he was full-blown Parkinson’s and everything else was going on, but he was still trying to make a difference and he didn’t let the disease stop him.
RC:
Do you remember things your dad would say -- I read this in several places -- he said things to set people’s minds at ease about the Parkinson’s Disease and the tremors?
JB:
Oh God. He would sit up at night thinking about different things to say. His line about he met Muhammad Ali the other day and they shook hands and it took people 15 minutes to get them untangled. That was one. Another one he said was when they dedicated a bust, that was made in his likeness at Busch Stadium, he got up and he said, “I’m 75 years old, I’ve given the Cardinals the best years of my life and now I’m giving them some of the worst.” And he had a way of making light of the situation, a very serious situation, but doing it so that everybody was disarmed, the whole situation was disarmed and you wouldn’t even think about it. And I think that really says something for him and it’s a good lesson to learn.
RC:
The one I heard was, “What’s shakin’ -- besides me?”
JB:
Right. He had that, he told my mom he was going to join a band and play the castanets. He said he was at an auction where he bought a $5,000 trip to the booth to meet himself because he couldn’t keep his hand down. He had such a great sense of humor that it made everybody smile about it.
RC:
I read in your bio that you’ve been calling professional games since 1989. Is that right?
JB:
That’s right. I’ve been calling games for most of my adult life and I’ve been going to games since I was about zero and a half.
RC:
Tell me about the first game you remember as a kid.
JB:
First game I remember as a kid...I remember because it was a traumatic experience. I was in the back of the booth, sitting with my mom -- I think I was three, maybe four. I was in the back of the booth. My dad and Mike Shannon are broadcasting the game down below. And as they’re doing the game I knocked a Coke over on top of them as they broadcast the game. And they turned around and looked at me and -- it was just their natural reaction. I burst into tears. They had a good laugh at it. They had to take a shower after that, but they had a good laugh and I had an experience that I will never forget.
RC:
Baseball for you had to be everyday life growing up.
JB:
Yeah, I got a chance to start broadcasting professionally in this business when I was 19 and the reason is it was really just an extension of the same life I’d been leading since I could remember. All I really did was change seats. I used to sit down there next to my dad and Mike Shannon with no microphone in front of it and I moved to the seat next to them with the microphone in front of it. It just felt natural. I’ve been around ball parks, I’ve been in clubhouses, I’ve been around big league players. From a personal standpoint it felt really natural making that jump.
RC:
Since you’ve been around the game that long, can you tell me why baseball matters to America? The love affair seems to have shifted.
JB:
I think baseball still is the national past time. And I work in both Major League Baseball and the NFL and the NFL can’t wait to show you all the numbers about how the ratings are “this” and it blows away baseball. But all I needed to know was in 2001 after 9/11, to be in New York, to do a World Series, to have those moments to have it be something to take everyone’s mind -- for a brief while -- off these really scary times in our country’s history -- told me all I needed to know. Baseball was still there. Baseball was still alive and willing to be a diversion and powerful enough to be a diversion just for those few hours to make people -- especially in New York -- to kind of set that aside and enjoy the sport.
RC:
And why is that? Why does baseball have that hold on America like that?
JB:
I just think it’s history. When you have history that is passed on from generation to generation; when a grandfather can tell a son and a grandson about seeing Willie Mays and the way he used to go back and catch a fly ball in center field to a kid who’s watching Ken Griffey Jr. do it in 2004, that is what makes it a fun game. There’s no sport that has a love for it’s history like Major League Baseball. You can name all the big record holders in baseball. I don’t care what they say about the NFL, you can’t tell me who has the touchdown record, who has the passing record, who has the -- it’s just not that type of sport. It’s more for the here and now. Major League Baseball is history, not only to do with this country but within families. It bridges generations.
RC:
So you mention baseball as a great diversion in the sense of 9/11 and the history of it -- I should preface this by saying, I went to the Negro League Museum in Kansas City and they drew a correlation I never thought about before in these terms, but he said Jackie Robinson really set the table for Martin Luther King. Do you think that’s fair?
JB:
Well I think you could definitely go back through the history of baseball and look at the Jackie Robinson situation and see where it parallels and mirrors what was going on in American life. Whether it’s the introduction of the African American athlete into clubhouses, suffering all they suffered on Major League Baseball fields from the fans and, not just their opponents, but their teammates as well, I’m sure parallels the struggles that was going on in every day life in jobs across the country. This just happened to be in the spotlight. So I think there’s definitely a correlation there. And I think baseball has that distinction more than any other sport.
RC:
Did you play baseball?
JB:
I played in high school. I was good in high school. I went to college, went to Indiana, was walking on and dislocated my pitching shoulder. Two consecutive pitches and...the good thing is it didn’t crush a dream because I was realistic. I knew I wasn’t good enough to get to the Major League level. I think the only thing it did do was give me an appreciation for how good these guys really are. And when you sit back as a broadcaster or as a fan and you see a guy mistake or an error or a guy strikes out with the bases loaded and nobody out and you say, “How can that happen?” -- when you have some idea of how hard it is, and I don’t pretend to know anymore than the next guy, I think I appreciate it that much more -- how good they are.
RC:
Do you think that works for you as an announcer, too? You seem to have an everyman’s approach.
JB:
Yeah. Two things: First of all, when my dad drove me down to Lousiville to start my professional career in 1989 he said, “You know you’ve grown up watching Major League Baseball, watching Major League players play this game. Realize, now, you’re going to the minor leagues and you’re going to see some guys that aren’t Major League quality and unless you feel that you could have made the play 10 times out of 10 times, you can’t be overly critical.” You can’t lie to the crowd, to the audience, but you can’t get on these guys. That’s part one. Part two is my opinon’s no different than anyone else’s. I mean in this day and age of talk radio and a sea of highlights and reruns and games that are on night after night, my opinion’s no more valuable than the next guy. And I appreciate everyone’s opinion and I try to state mine without being too forceful about it or beating you over the head with it. So I appreciate everyone’s opinion and I think that people who really respect this game that are in it appreciate the everyday man’s or woman’s opinion just as much as their own.
RC:
What do you think your dad taught you about the game and what it means to life?
JB:
My dad taught me a lot of things about the game and very little of it has to do with the actual calling of a broadcast -- Ball one, strike two... It’s more about how to act as a person, how to treat people the right way. It’s how to go through life being a semi-celebrity in his case -- or a celebrity full-on and treating everybody equally. From day one I saw my father treat the lady who runs the elevator at Busch stadium the same as he would treat his boss coming in to talk to him about the broadcast. And if you have that attitude and that approach I think it’ll serve you well, not just as a broadcaster but as a human being. I think it was good to see him achieve the kind of success that he achieved and then to see how he handled it and didn’t change. he treated everyone, when they came up to shake his hand, as an important person. That’s just the way he was consistently.
RC:
Does baseball, as a game itself, have life lessons for fans or for you as a broadcaster?
JB:
Yeah. Not to get too philosophical about it but I think any fan who’s hanging on every pitch and watches as your favorite player on your favorite team strikes out with a chance to win the game, you go to bed thinking about it, you wake up the next day thinking about it. But then, the next day, the best part about it is there’s a game the next night. You go right back to it. Last night’s game is a distant memory and now you’re living for the here and now. And I think there’s something there to be learned about life. You have your expectations up about something and it doesn’t come through and you can’t just give in. You just pick up the next day and move on. I think there’s a good lesson in that. There’s something about the every day nature of baseball, the rising and falling of it, the long trek through the season from spring training hopefully through the end of the playoffs, I think you can learn a lot about life from.
RC:
When was your dad diagnosed with Parkinson’s?
JB:
He passed away when he was about to turn 78 and I would say and he lived with it, with us being aware of it, for I’d say nine or ten years. Everybody’s story is different with the symptoms and how the symptoms are handled and how the medication treats the symptoms. I just know that he lived with it for a long time, lived with it for a long time in the public eye and if there’s anything I take away from my dad’s example in that end of it was that it didn’t slow him down. Yes he had tremors. Yes it took him longer to sign autographs. There were times where he really didn’t feel that great. He was dealing with a lot of other things besides just Parkinson’s, but, he still was the same person. And he wasn’t too proud to have his hand shake as he signed an autograph for somebody or have that stop him. He was probably more active when he was 77 than when he was 67. And he was full-blown Parkinson’s and everything else was going on, but he was still trying to make a difference and he didn’t let the disease stop him.
RC:
Do you remember things your dad would say -- I read this in several places -- he said things to set people’s minds at ease about the Parkinson’s Disease and the tremors?
JB:
Oh God. He would sit up at night thinking about different things to say. His line about he met Muhammad Ali the other day and they shook hands and it took people 15 minutes to get them untangled. That was one. Another one he said was when they dedicated a bust, that was made in his likeness at Busch Stadium, he got up and he said, “I’m 75 years old, I’ve given the Cardinals the best years of my life and now I’m giving them some of the worst.” And he had a way of making light of the situation, a very serious situation, but doing it so that everybody was disarmed, the whole situation was disarmed and you wouldn’t even think about it. And I think that really says something for him and it’s a good lesson to learn.
RC:
The one I heard was, “What’s shakin’ -- besides me?”
JB:
Right. He had that, he told my mom he was going to join a band and play the castanets. He said he was at an auction where he bought a $5,000 trip to the booth to meet himself because he couldn’t keep his hand down. He had such a great sense of humor that it made everybody smile about it.
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