Just like his dad, Joe Buck to enter broadcasting pantheon with Frick Award

Joe Buck vividly remembers the day in 1987 that his father, legendary announcer Jack Buck, was honored in Cooperstown with the Ford C. Frick Award.

“I remember what I wore -- goofy sunglasses, a seersucker blue-and-white striped jacket,” Buck said in a phone interview with MLB.com. “I was sitting next to my mom, and it was a beautiful day.”

Mostly, though, Buck recalls seeing his father in a light that he hadn’t noticed before.

“I was taken by how proud my dad was that day,” Buck recalled. “He was always kind of shunning the spotlight, at least as far as I saw him during my lifetime with him. But that was a time I remember seeing him really soak it in.”

One by one, legends of the game came over to pat Jack Buck on the back and congratulate him.

"Seeing the respect people had for my dad was special. It makes you realize he left a mark and people liked having him around. That was never lost on me.”

On July 25, almost 39 years to the day after his father’s ceremony, Joe Buck will get his day in the sun, joining his father as a recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award for major contributions to baseball broadcasting. They are the first father and son broadcasters to be so honored.

The younger Buck was part of St. Louis Cardinals broadcasts from 1991 to 2007, but he made his biggest mark as the lead play-by-play announcer on national television broadcasts for FOX, where he called 135 World Series games between 1996 and 2021, more than any other television broadcaster in history.

During that time, Buck put signature calls on World Series titles that were decades in the making, such as the drought-busting championships won by the Red Sox in 2004, the White Sox in 2005 and the Cubs in 2016.

In fact, the last championships won by all those teams predated television itself. That Buck had the great fortune and responsibility to narrate history wasn’t lost on him.

“I think I was always aware when I walked into the booth in a World Series game that something that happened that night could be replayed for the rest of time,” Buck said. “Sitting in [Progressive] Field, being able to say on TV for the first time -- it never happened on TV -- that the Cubs were the world champions for the first time since before World War I. … You don’t have to be a baseball fan to realize that these are key dates and moments in our history.”

Among the 24 different World Series Buck called, his first one in 1996 stands out with special meaning. He was just 27 at the time, the youngest World Series broadcaster since 25-year-old Vin Scully in 1953.

As a young boy, Buck remembered his dad would host card games at the family’s home in St. Louis, and among the guests were Cardinals players Tim McCarver and Joe Torre. Now Buck would be calling his first World Series with McCarver as his broadcast partner and Torre as the Yankees’ manager.

“It was the biggest stage you can find, Yankee Stadium in October, and yet there was a feeling of familiarity that wasn’t lost on me,” Buck said.

Still, he got so anxious before Game 1 that he lost track of time and realized he didn’t have enough time to finish his lineup card and pregame notes. When rain postponed the game until the next day, Buck felt a sense of relief.

“I had time to relax then and take it all in,” Buck said of the rainout. “I’m sure God wasn’t looking out for me individually at that moment, but I sure took advantage of it.”

The Yankees won that series in six games to clinch their first championship in almost two decades. When it was over, Buck met the moment, and it provided him with a sense of accomplishment and belonging.

“Having the words come out of my mouth that the Yankees are champions of baseball, that was nothing that I ever grew up thinking I was going to say,” Buck said. “And when those words kind of spilled out of my mouth without me thinking about it, it was a great feeling. I felt like I belonged on that stage.”

And he will certainly belong on the stage in Cooperstown as well. As he speaks to the crowd, Buck’s mind is certain to drift back to that long ago day his father was honored.

“There’s something my dad said in 1987 that struck me,” Buck said. “He loved being the eyes and ears of Cardinal fans sitting in the best seat in the house. And I loved sitting there each night [on national TV] waiting to see what was going to unfold in front of me. Whether it was at Yankee Stadium or Fenway or Wrigley, these great iconic venues with these big moments, that was a feeling you don’t get anywhere else.”