The Chicago Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals game got rained out Friday, and you will not see Joe Buck on Saturday night.
The ESPN “Monday Night Football” broadcaster’s return to baseball was washed away by rain on Friday, with the Cardinals’ home game getting postponed due to inclement weather. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on July 13 in St. Louis.
The broadcast on Bally Sports Midwest was billed as Buck joining forces with Chip Caray to echo Cubs-Cardinals history. Buck is the son of Jack Buck, the longtime radio voice of the Cardinals, while Caray is the grandson of beloved Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray.
Buck jokingly feigned tears after the game was called before suggesting they could try the set-up again (he’s still got a few months before football season) and claiming he had an inkling this would happen:
“I wanted to do a game so badly tonight, but maybe we’ll do another game some other time. I just remember, I swear to you, when I talked to [Bally Sports executive producer] Larry Mago and we were putting all this together, I hung up and thought, ‘Y’know, the one thing that could happen that night is rain.’ And the one thing that happened tonight is rain.”
Caray saw a silver lining: Buck didn’t have to worry about getting his 6-year old twin boys into bed. Buck concurred, saying about his wife Michelle, “Hopefully she got them to bed.”
The night instead turned into an exercise in reminiscing about the past of baseball and broadcasting, though fans were probably going to get that whether or not the game was played.
Buck was nihilistic about the situation, but made clear he was happy to be in a baseball stadium:
“It’s good to be back. Maybe we’ll do a game, maybe we won’t. I do know this, I enjoyed every minute of this rain delay, sitting here catching up on all the new things that have happened in the game of baseball in the two years that I’ve been gone. And now I’m really ready to do the game and there is no game. Oh well. It’s the way it goes. That’s just life.”
It’s been two years since Buck left Fox Sports for ESPN after the latter poached his football broadcasting partner Troy Aikman. The move meant Buck had to walk away from his gig as Fox’s primary baseball play-by-play announcer opposite John Smoltz. He has not called a baseball game since. Fox replaced Buck with Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Joe Davis, who has been an upgrade so far for many fans.
We’ll see if Buck decides to get back in the booth, but so far his biggest detractor has been Mother Nature.