Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (29 page)

The Apple series ended in late 1959. Ain't nothing easy: That fall the Cards
cut Buck. "Bud Blattner, from St. Louis, needed a job and KMOX squeezed me
out."At liberty, Jack bounded to ABC. The problem was CBS and NBC. "Each
Saturday their 'Game' started at two o'clock. Ours began at four. It was
overkill." Looking hack, the fight should have been stopped on points.

Fired, the unhappy wanderer found a happy ending. "I'd got good notices
on network baseball," he said. "Now KMOX wanted me." Also wowing:
Buck's grasp of another sport.

In 1960, ABC handed Jack the new American (some said Almost) Football
League. "A franchise cost exactly $25,000. Guys ran around with hundred
dollar bills, paying cash to snatch college players [from the NFL]. I know
because I saw it." The league seemed alien-more UFO than AFL.

A 1962 title game photo shows Buck, with mike, at midfield, reporting
overtime's Houston-Dallas coin toss. "Abner Haynes won the toss, then stupidly said Dallas'd kick. Houston gets the wind-and ball," Jack said. Dallas
won, anyway. Next year Buck switched to the NFL. "He prepared, but
loosely," said then-CBS analyst Pat Summerall. "'This is not a funeral. We'll
have fun, and hope people do, too.' "

Lite and bite: Buck aired the Bears and Cowboys. Twin peaks: Super
Bowl IV (Kansas City 23, Minnesota 7), and Ice Bowl (December 31, 1967)
at Green Bay's Lambeau Field. A hotel operator phoned at 7:30 A.M. "Good
morning. It's 17 below zero." Pursed lips froze. Players developed frostbite.
Said Jack: "Excuse me while I have a bite of my coffee."

Pack, 21-17. Buck's twin-engine plane leaves for Chicago. Wind chill
reaches 50 degrees below zero. Suddenly, near New Holstein, Wisconsin, the
front door opens. "Frank Gifford's in that seat and I've got my arms around him,"
said Jack, "and [analyst]Tommy Brookshier is shooting scotch in Gifford's mouth."

The plane lands, skids, and stops. Trembling, Buck saw a stand of wood
50 feet away. "We switched planes, got to Chicago, and believe me, celebrated New Year's Eve."

He had reason. Jack's sixties daybook listed hoops (Hawks), hockey
(Blues), and bowling (with ABC's Chris Schenkel). He interviewed Eleanor
Roosevelt, broadcast from the new Gateway Arch, and bloomed as emcee.
"The best there ever was at a dinner," said Bob Broeg. His phrase "That's a
winner!" seemed less applicable to the team. Six times the '54-'62ers failed
the second division. "By August, pure drudgery," Buck said. By contrast,
"Baseball's daily, so a winner [1964 and 1967-681 engulfs the city and lives
through the winter. A wonderful thing to see."

In 1965, Buck called his first All-Star Game. Next year Busch Stadium,
opening eight blocks from the Arch, hosted the Mid-Summer Classic.The field
temperature read 130 degrees. "I must say," said Casey Stengel, "it [the park]
holds the heat well." Easy? Ain't nothing easy. In St. Louis, Caray was still king.

"He had his moments, but he was the first to editorialize," Jack said.
"When Harry and I were doing the game, we were as good a team as there
ever was." To Skip Caray, "Dad [was] the voice of the guy sitting in the
bleachers with his shirt off, and Jack the emcee for the guy dressed in a
dinner jacket," hitched like "[Itzhak] Perlman and a violin."

Harry's firing made pickets froth. How could you replace him? The Great
Gatsby dubbed style "an unbroken series of perfect gestures." Inside, Buck
anguished. Publicly, he never broke a sweat.

In 1976, Jack left "the best baseball broadcasting position in the United
States, but sometimes you have to take a chance," hosting NBC's new "Grandstand." Cool and wry, how could the natural miss?

"A question I still ask," he joked two decades later. Guesswork: network
TV's iron hand: in at 54:10; out, 57:23; go to break; toss to remote. Local
work was breezier. "You golf, swim, and shoot pool, go to the park and b.s.,
do the game, and go home." Bob Costas joined KMOX in 1974: "NBC's Buck
was not the Buck we knew."

Axed, he repaired to St. Louis to raise money for cystic fibrosis, narrate
Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" for the St. Louis
Symphony, and reclaim the Cards.

Bob Gibson became the second pitcher to fan 3,000. Lou Brock got
3,023 hits. Al Hrabosky stalked the mound, mumbled to himself, smacked
his glove, and restabbed the rubber. "Jack did it all," said Costas. "I'd hang
around, hoping to soak him up."

In 1982, Ozzie Smith arrived from San Diego, having reinvented shortstop. The season ended with Bruce Sutter K-ing Gorman Thomas. "That's a winner! That's a winner!" cried Buck. "A World Series winner for the St.
Louis Cardinals."A 1985 flag pivoted on L.C.S. Game Five. Ozzie had never
homered in 2,967 ups batting left. "Smith rips one into right! Down the line!
It may go! Go crazy, folks! Go crazy! It's a home run, and the Cardinals have
won the game, 3-2, on a home run by the Wizard!"

Buck did CBS Radio's 1976 All-Star Game, 1979-82 L.C.S., and
1983-89 Series, including the 1988 opener. L.A. trails, 4-3. Kirk Gibson
limps to the plate like Walter Brennan, fouls pitches like Hank Aguirre, then
swings. "And a fly ball to deep right field!" Jack cried. "This is going to be a
home run! Unbelievable! A home run for Gibson! And the Dodgers have won
the game, 5 to 4. I don't believe what I just saw!"

We did: Buck let us, every word.

To Buck, CBS Radio's 1979-97 "Monday Night Football" meant "telling
where the ball is, giving the score." Baseball differed. "The audience knows
its sport better because you're brought up on it. You give bright people inside
dope you know because you're on the scene and they're not." In 1990, CBS
TV began four-year exclusivity. "It pays a bundle to get baseball," said TSN's
Jack Craig, "then finds sales stink."The mikeman falleth: Buck replaced Brent
Musburger. Surely Jack-modest and fatalistic, with a nice-guy air-would
grease interest. Think again.

"CBS never got that baseball play-by-play draws word-pictures," he rued.
"All they knew was that football stars analysts. So they said, `Let [analyst Tim]
McCarver run the show.' "The bug was wayward regular-season coverage:
"CBS stands for `Covers Baseball Sporadically,' " wrote Sports Illustrated.
"Buck and McCarver may have to have a reunion before [their] telecast,"
added USA Today. Said Buck: "We never got a chance to fit."

In 1991, Bobby Vinton mangled the National Anthem before a playoff
game in Pittsburgh. Jack lightly referred to Vinton being Polish. "The
irony," said son Joe, "was that he trying to help the guy." Death threats
rose. Buck found a footprint on his hotel pillow. Next day director Ted
Shaker spotted him in the lobby. "You're in trouble," he snapped, then
walked away. Solace: a see-saw/hold your breath/worst to first World
Series.

"The ['90] Braves and Twins were last," Buck said. "Now both make the
final." In Game Six, Kirby Puckett tripled, stole a dinger, and hit the Event's
fourth overtime game-winning homer. "Into deep left-center! ... And we'll
see you tomorrow night!" Game Seven, 10th inning: Minnesota's Dan Gladden reaches third base. Two walks follow. "Larkin is the pinch-hitter ...
the Twins are going to win the World Series! The Twins have won it! It's a base
hit! It's a 1-0 10th-inning victory!"

Five, three, and four games were decided by a run, in extra innings, and
in the last at-bat, respectively. "Great way to go out," said Phil Mushnick. "But
what I recall is Jack trying to predict plays, as if to prove he was still on top."
Sacked, he sported a what, me worry? front, visiting next spring's Irish
Derby. "The Irish are so relaxed. If you buy a paper, they say, `Do you want
yesterday's or today's?'

"I say, `Today's, of course.'

"They say, `Come back tomorrow.' I like that attitude after the last couple
years."

Ronald Reagan said of Thomas Jefferson, "I know that's true because he told
me." Aging, Jack refused to age. "One good thing about you is you don't die
young," he told Ernie Harwell in 1992. That season an old pal greeted
another septuagenarian. "Take care of yourself," Caray urged Herb Carneal.
"There aren't many of us left to lose."

Smith left in 1996. A year later Mark McGwire arrived from Oakland.
Buck covered them despite diabetes, a pacemaker, vertigo, and Parkinson's
disease. "I shook hands with Muhammad Ali recently," he joked. "It took them
30 minutes to get us untangled." Wife Carole asked what Jack would one day
say to God. "I want to ask Him why He's been so good to me."

In 1998, the Cardinals dedicated a bust of Buck, smiling, hand cupping an ear: "Jack in his favorite spot," it read, "behind the microphone."
McGwire ripped homer 60-"Wake up, Babe Ruth! There's company
coming!"-then stalked Roger Maris. "Look at there! Look at there! Look
at there! McGwire's No. 61, Flight 61, headed for Planet Maris! History.
Bedlam! What a moment! Pardon me for a moment while I stand to
applaud!"

Peroration: Buck called game 6,500. The 2001 Cards resumed a week
after 9/11. At Busch, Jack read an original poem. "As our fathers did before,
we shall win this unwanted war. And our children will enjoy the future we'll
be giving."Ain't nothing easy. His face twitched, his hands jerked. Buck never
stood so tall.

After December 5 cancer surgery, "He was doing fine," said Carole. "Everything was on track to do baseball in 2002." Next month doctors removed an intestinal blockage. Five operations, including brain surgery, shed Irish luck
from a life begun hard. "I always told him how much I loved him," said Joe,
visiting daily. "He and I didn't waste one second together."

Dad died on a night the home team played Anaheim. "Buck Dead at 77,"
knelled the page-one Post-Dispatch. The Swifties permanently lit his statue.
Thousands viewed the casket, lined a freeway for Buck's cortege, and
recalled him saying, "They talk a lot in football and baseball about not beating
yourself. The same applies in life. Don't shortchange yourself." A city wept:
Jack had not shortchanged it.

Churchill said of former British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith: "His
children are his best memorial." Buck left his wife, five daughters, three
sons, and 16 grandchildren. "He meant class," said Costas, "a guy who
never talked down."

That's a winner! seems easy to apply to Jack.

Not easy: sport without a man who synthesized the Gaelic mix of
grace, pain, and cheer.

JACK SUCH

Statistics cite number of, say, World Series. They cannot retrieve a ribbon of
rococo prose. From 1948 to 1975, one radio after another aired a baseball
original. A great play sparked "How sweet it is!"; dingers, "Kiss it good-bye!";
a Pirates' triumph, "We had 'em allll the way!" In an inning, Bob Prince might
loop from U.S. Steel stock via golf with Bing Crosby to his favorite charity,
the Allegheny Valley School for Retarded Children.

"Oh, by the way," he would note, "Clemente grounded out, Stargell flied
out, and that's the inning." Prince's moniker was The Gunner. (Once he made
a joke to a woman in a bar. Her husband replied by pointing a gun.) Some
thought Bob a maniac. It is fair to say he was maniacally riveting.

The son of Army Colonel F.A. Prince, Bob was raised "by a mammy who had
sayings like `it's as quiet as a gnat pissing on a bale of cotton.' " His mother
placed a word "under my breakfast cereal dish. When I came home from
school that day, I had to know how to define and use it properly." Dad
plunked the Army brat at six posts and 14 or 15 schools. He flunked out of
four universities, got a B.A. at Oklahoma, and entered Harvard Law.

"I had three uncles, cousins, a grandfather and brother who were Harvard lawyers. I went so I wouldn't have to work." In 1940, Gunner, 24, read
about a jurist who frequented a burlesque house. One night Papa Prince saw
sonny, with a stripper, in a newsreel on the jitterbug. "You're wasting my
money," dad phoned from Alabama, yanking him from school. "Here's
$2,000. Go make a living." The Gunner had another aim in mind.

Bob's unwritten memoir read I Should Have Never Danced with the Stripper.
He should have never been scarred by a polo mallet, kicked in a rodeo, or
jailed for vagrancy-but was. A pattern emerged, worthy of a diffident
respect. "Anything short of murder," he said, "I've been there." From Harvard, that meant Zelienople, near Pittsburgh, at his grandmother's home"the only town where I could find a place to live."

Dad phoned again: "Throw that bum out of the house." Prince was to find
a job. Instead, he found a wife.

"One day I see this nifty lady," Bob said of a local high school teacher. Betty married him in 1941. Having been a vagabond, Prince more or less settled on his
career. "In the Army I'd played golf, polo, fenced. I'd swam at Oklahoma. All I'd
been trained to do was loaf. Broadcasting was the next easiest thing."

By day he sold insurance. At night, like Caray, Bob began "Winchellizing"
radio-in his phrase, "disputatious." One night Prince charged that boxer
Billy Conn ducked opponents. Next week Conn hit him in the gut.