Fox’s Buck knows ALCS is a no-win situation for him
While Blue Jays fans have already torn analyst Harold Reynolds apart for his comments about Canadians, fans in Kansas City are already calling for Joe Buck’s head because they believe Fox’s lead play-by-play announcer is biased based on his call during last year’s playoffs.
“So now, hey, I’m rooting against the Blue Jays and for the Royals; and against the Royals and for the Blue Jays depending on where you live,” Buck says sarcastically on the phone Friday from Kansas City as he was getting ready to call Game 1.
Buck joins analysts Reynolds, Tom Verducci and sideline reporter Ken Rosenthal in calling the ALCS, and if there’s one thing he knows after 20 years of calling baseball, no matter where they are, the announcers can’t win.
“It’s more in the ear of the viewer and the listener than it is in the heart of the announcer,” he say. “But that’s just the way it is. The funny thing is that it’s more of a baseball phenomenon, than it is football. I think it’s because in baseball, fans of the hometown teams hear their hometown announcers basically every game; and the hometown announcers, which I was for the Cardinals for a long time, are living and dying with the team if it’s winning or losing.”
“So sure, you get excited when Jose Bautista hits a home run, and people in Toronto expect that because that’s what they hear all year. But when you hear the announcer get excited when Lorenzo Cain hits a home run, then now it hits their ears funny, and ‘Well, that guy doesn’t like my team.’ That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Most Canadians probably know Buck’s voice from being the lead NFL announcer, or previous games or series where they didn’t have a rooting interest. He thinks the last time he called a game here was in 1993 but has nothing but good mem- ories of the city and speaks effusively about how Montreal was his favourite stop when he covered the Cardinals. Actually, if you do a Google search for Canadian reaction to Buck, nothing negative comes up — yet. “Give it a day,” says Buck. Buck, 46, says he has seen this type of bias talk explode in this age of social media, and even though earlier this week, he was amusedly engaging on Twitter with some K.C. fans — including one named Adam Jones, who started a petition to get him removed from calling the games — he says he’s turning off Twitter for the rest of the playoffs, as it’s just too much noise.
“With the Twitter stuff, if you’re going to let it affect you, you can’t read it because then you’re trying to please everybody and not doing what’s true to the moment,” he says.
“I think nothing draws the emotion of a viewer or listener more than sports. I just believe that . . . if you want to dive into (social media), bring a snorkel. It kind of becomes an online game about who can be more offensive. As to why I engage, sometimes it’s not the smartest thing because there could be five great comments and one jackass, and that’s the one I respond to, and then you are just throwing chum into the water in the ocean of jackasses.”
Asked about what excites him most about this ALCS he goes right to the fans, who beyond sharing a dislike for whoever is calling the game are equally excited about their team’s chances.
“These two fan bases. I was at home watching that crazy Game 5 and thinking I have a chance to be in that atmosphere, that is what every broadcaster should want. You can pick your spots and the crowd’s going to carry it,” he says.
“It’s wonderful. It’s the worst when it’s the opposite and you have an apathetic crowd, which doesn’t happen a lot in the post-season, but it does happen. I want to be in the place where the camera operator can’t hold the camera still. Where the picture is bouncing around because the place is going that nuts. That’s what we’re going to get on both sides of this.”
So Toronto fans, Buck is ready for your criticism, and if it’s a contest, Kansas City looks to have taken the early lead in hating this particular announcer, but he knows it’s only a matter of time. And in a weird way, he knows it’s because of how much you care.
“Part of this is good. I’m glad they know I’m here. I’m glad the Kansas City fans are riled up. If I was so boring and so unopinionated and milquetoast that nobody even cared that I was doing this game, that would be a lot more disconcerting than people thinking I’m rooting for the other side.”