Joe Buck’s return to MLB broadcasting in May was postponed due to rain, but is now scheduled to be made up.
After more than two years away from calling baseball, Buck was originally scheduled to return for a night on May 24, broadcasting a Chicago Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals game on Bally Sports Midwest with a fellow legacy announcer, Cardinals play-by-play man Chip Caray.
Unfortunately, the game was rained out. Buck and Caray did provide the audience with some stories, reminiscing about their careers, elders and baseball. But with the rain delay, the broadcast was largely filled by previously recorded programming.
Life (and weather) is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. What a fun night at the old ballpark anyway. Thanks to Chip Caray and the crew at Ballys for the wonderful welcome back. Maybe we find another date. Either way it felt special.
— Joe Buck (@Buck) May 25, 2024
However, Buck still has a month before his football broadcast schedule begins. That provided the Cardinals with an opportunity to plan another Buck return to the booth and a date has been found. Buck will now call July 29’s Cardinals game with the Texas Rangers, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Dan Caesar.
While not as seemingly perfect as a Cubs-Cardinals matchup, St. Louis playing the Rangers does still connect to Buck, as he called those teams playing each other in the 2011 World Series. In Game 6, Buck paid tribute to his father by saying “We’ll see you tomorrow night” after the Rangers’ David Freese hit a walkoff homer, just like Jack Buck did for Kirby Puckett’s homer in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series.
Buck hasn’t called a baseball game since broadcasting the 2021 World Series for Fox. In 2022, the veteran announcer went to ESPN, joining longtime on-air partner Troy Aikman to be the network’s broadcast team for “Monday Night Football.”
That ended a 25-year run as Fox’s lead MLB play-by-play voice and more than 30 years of calling baseball during his career. Though Buck had the opportunity to call MLB broadcasts for ESPN, he said he was “ready to move on.” However, he did acknowledge a return was possible if he wanted to do it.
Teaming Buck up with Caray is a pleasant nod to the past, when Harry Caray and Jack Buck called Cardinals games in the 1950s and 1960s, in addition to celebrating two renowned broadcasting families. Now, the second- and third-generation will get another chance to enjoy the occasion with grateful baseball fans.
