Since departing from Fox for ESPN in 2022 to be the lead play-by-play man on Monday Night Football, Joe Buck subsequently put a pause on broadcasting MLB games. And unfortunately for those hoping to see him call more baseball games in the future, a recent conversation with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo indicated that this likely won’t be the case.
Last season, Buck returned to the broadcast booth to call his first MLB game since the 2021 World Series, joining Chip Caray on the broadcast of a matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers on Bally Sports Midwest this past July.
This one-off return to calling baseball games led to a follow-up that will come later this week, as Joe Buck will be on the call of ESPN’s Opening Day broadcast between the New York Yankees and the Milwaukee Brewers, his first nationally televised broadcast since the 2021 World Series.
Even if Buck’s return to a national audience calling baseball does seem to be more of a favor to ESPN senior vice president Mark Gross than any kind of passion to rekindle a broadcasting career in baseball, it was a topic that was discussed during an appearance on Mad Dog Unleashed with Chris Russo on SiriusXM on Monday.
When asked by Russo whether he would consider a return to calling baseball on a more regular basis, Buck outlined how, while he loves calling the big moments, he simply doesn’t have the time to put in the hours necessary to be on the biggest stages.
“Have you missed doing baseball play-by-play?” asked Russo. “Do you miss those big moments behind the microphone as a baseball announcer?”
“Yeah, for sure. You miss the big moments,” replied Buck. “I’ll say two things about that, though. You gotta work all year to get to those big moments. It sounds like a complaint. It’s not. You’re traveling around and mixing that in with football and trying to keep up with all the reading and all the story lines and doing the prep day after day, and then you get the big moments.
“But to go, ‘Oh man, I miss the big moments.’ Of course, you miss calling a Freddie Freeman grand slam in Game 1 of the World Series. You can cry about not being there all you want, but it’s not just about being parachuted in for ninth inning, bases loaded, two outs. You gotta do the first inning on a Tuesday night in the regular season to get there. You gotta put the hours in, and I don’t have the hours anymore.”
Joe Buck was undoubtedly one of the busiest men in sports during his time at Fox, with his work simultaneously on the network’s World Series coverage while also calling the NFL on Fox Game of the Week. Clearly, this isn’t a schedule that he would like to return to.
Since his move to ESPN, Buck has been pretty consistent in outwardly saying that he doesn’t have a passion for MLB broadcasting anymore on a regular basis.
That fact seemingly hasn’t changed. So unless he has a change of heart down the line, expect Buck’s upcoming broadcast for ESPN to be his last for quite some time on the diamond, especially considering the fact that ESPN decided to opt out of their TV deal with Major League Baseball.