The Chicago Cubs-St. The Louis Cardinals game was rained out on Friday and you won’t see Joe Buck in Saturday night.
ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” return to baseball was washed away by rain on Friday, and the Cardinals’ home game was postponed due to inclement weather. The game will be played 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 the Cubs-Cardinals story. 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 faked tears after the game was canceled before suggesting they could try the setup again (he still has a few months left before football season) and claimed he had an inkling this would happen:
“I so wanted to do a game tonight, but maybe we’ll do another game another time. I just remember, I swear, when I talked to (Bally Sports executive producer) Larry Mago and we were putting all this together. I hung up and thought : ‘You know, the only thing that could happen that night is rain.’ And the only thing that happened tonight is rain.”
Heck, he saw a silver lining: Buck didn’t have to worry about putting his 6-year-old twins to bed. Buck agreed, saying of his wife Michelle, “I hope I put them to bed.”
Instead, the night became an exercise in reminiscing about baseball and broadcasting, although fans would probably understand that whether the game was played or not.
Buck was nihilistic about the situation, but made it clear that he was happy to be in a ballpark:
“It’s good to be back. Maybe we’ll have a game, maybe we won’t. I know, I enjoyed every minute of this rain delay, sitting here catching up on all the new things that happened in the baseball game in both years I’ve been away. And now I’m really ready to play and there’s no game.
It’s been two years since Buck left Fox Sports for ESPN after the latter poached his football broadcast partner Troy Aikman. The move meant Buck had to leave his job as Fox’s lead baseball play-by-play announcer alongside John Smoltz. Since then he has not called a baseball game. Fox replaced Buck with Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Joe Davis, who has been an upgrade for many fans so far.
We’ll see if Buck decides to return to the cabin, but so far his biggest detractor has been Mother Nature.
