Joe Buck
If I had a walk-up song in 2019, it would be 'Baby Shark.' It's haunting. It's mesmerizing. It's catchy.
I mean the home run king, to me, is Hank Aaron, but statistically, it's Barry Bonds.
I enjoy the mental gymnastics that go along with matching voice to picture and vice versa and trying to accent the action as opposed to provide all of the action through my words. And that's really what play-by-play is.
We do scales, vocal exercises every day. I run the voice up and down, get as high as I can and as low as I can. I work on breathing, too.
To declare the Cubs champions after 108 years was the highlight of my career.
I got a chance to host the 'Late Late Show' for two nights before they hired Craig Ferguson. I enjoyed it, but nothing can replace the thrill of calling an NFC championship game or a Super Bowl or a World Series.
I come from a city like St. Louis, where they consider themselves great baseball fans.
You can't interview Pete Rose and not ask about betting on the Reds and being banned from baseball.
I kind of feel like curling combines this weird vision of people sliding down a lane, and it looks like it combines bowling and every bar game I've ever played. But I still don't understand what the hell it is.
I, Joseph Francis Buck, became a hair-plug addict.
Timing in my life has been fortuitous.
Jack Buck fought through Europe during World War II.
I've heard, 'You're not your father.' Well, you're right. I'm not. We've had two different careers.
Procrastination is in my genetic code.
I have a casual interest in the NBA.
Broadcasting is a brutal, often unfair business, where looks are valued more than skill.
I am an extremely lucky and blessed person, but I'm pretty self-aware.
I'm a flawed, hard-working, hard-trying person.
I'm my dad's kid, and I'm still, right or wrong, fighting that uphill battle, and I'm not saying that makes sense. I mean my dad didn't hire me at Fox... but it certainly gave me my start, and I think I'm always kind of fighting that.
I learned as my dad's kid that unless you physically can't get there, unless you physically can't do it, you need to show up for work.
I try to make what I say count.
I have to live with what I say, or don't say, tens of thousands of times a game.
I live like a normal human being!
If that had been my only purpose in life - to call home runs and touchdowns - I'd lead a pretty shallow life.
In 1999, when Ted Williams came out and saluted the fans at the All Star Game at Fenway, I had a huge lump in my throat, and the producer is yelling in my ear to talk, and I couldn't, thankfully, and it was much better.
The point that I would make is it's easy for somebody like me to be critical of Colin Kaepernick, but I haven't suffered some of the same issues that Colin Kaepernick has. On some level, it's like, how dare I weigh in on what Kaepernick is doing or feeling?
You always want to do games for fans that seem to really care. That is the Boston fan. They're passionate.
I just consider Boston and New England incredible sports fans. If they give me trouble, think I'm rooting for other side, it's mainly because they're living and dying with every pitch and every play and think I'm rooting for the other side. I'd much rather that than apathy.
Most of the time, if someone gives me trouble at a bar or something, saying, 'Why do you hate the Red Sox or Patriots?' they end up buying you a drink or whatever. They like to be heard, say their piece, and then talk about the team.
No matter how it started, I grew up with a great American love story. Two parents who didn't fight, enjoyed having parties and being together, and it was a great way to grow up.
I think people have a warped sense of who I am.
My dad was not good at saying no. I'm trying to be better at saying no.
I think people bend the truth all the time, unfortunately.
Any surgery done to improve one's looks is not really something someone wants to talk about.
There are a lot of people across the country, for as silly as this sounds, who obsess about hair loss.
People would ask, 'Why is your vocal cord paralyzed?' I said it was a virus. I didn't say it was an elective procedure to add hair to the front of my head. It was embarrassing. There's an embarrassing element to that.
I watched how happy broadcasting made him. And if you're close with your parent and you see they're happy doing something, it's only natural you want to follow in their footsteps.
I was not broadcasting St. Louis Cardinals baseball because I was accomplished. I was broadcasting baseball at 21 years old because I was Jack Buck's son. I had a billion advantages.
I don't know who had a more tiresome, wall-to-wall schedule than my father, and I know what it's like to be a kid in that situation. He was gone a lot. He needed to be. I understood it. So did my mom.
I was worried that if I lost my hair, I would lose my job.
To me, baseball is, in some ways, other than my family and wife, my life, and it always will be.
I do watch sports. How could I not? Just for self-preservation.
As far as sitting down and watching a sports event, that's just not part of my day or part of my night.
I live for baseball. That's how I grew up.
Never bite off so much in your job that you can't spend a lot of time with your family.
My dad worked so hard. He slept in his own bed maybe half the nights of the year because of road assignments, but even when he was home, he was covering games. It put a lot of pressure on my mom. She brought in her parents to help out, and it took a village to raise us. I was lucky.
Great as my dad was - I would never have gotten my first job announcing if I didn't have the last name Buck - it's my mom, Carole, who has made the biggest difference. She was on Broadway back in the 1960s. She understands entertainment, has incredible instincts.
I'm clearly not an international man of mystery.
When you've done it long enough - I've done something like 21 World Series - just about every fan base has turned off the TV when their team lost and I was screaming and yelling for the other side.
I'd be willing to do anything once. I did live bass fishing on TV. I've done horse jumping... so clearly I'm not very picky.