Take away the Jack Buck from Cardinals baseball, and you might as well take away the soundtrack to a St. Louis summer, the accompanying crickets to the broadcast and the red from the uniforms. As pivotal and important as pages in a book or music in a movie, Buck may have not been the story, but he made the tale interesting.

His perfectly placed words, witty commentary and insight into how it had happened before gave us all a sense of security as we listened to the radio. He was like a grandfather, an uncle or a good friend on the other side of our speaker who was always there and knew the game in and out. He was there whether the Birds were winning or losing.

You felt a little more attached to our national pastime when you listened to Buck because he could reference any detail of any of his thousands of games of experience, giving you a little nugget about how Musial would have played it. While we felt comfort in his grasp of baseball, he never held it above our heads. He just used it when the time was right and when it applied to the game.

We knew that if Jack was impressed, with all his years of baseball knowledge and experience, then we better darn well be impressed too because we were witnessing baseball history.

We knew it when his voice jumped and subsequently bumped Ozzie’s first left-handed homer out in the playoffs in 1985. It was a call so electric that it still leaves the hairs standing on the backs of our necks.

We knew it when we could feel the disbelief through the child-like excitement of Buck’s call in 1988, as Kirk Gibson made the world wonder if an ailing body was any limit for a determined mind. “I don’t believe what I just saw!” he proclaimed as Dennis Eckersley’s pitch disappeared into the right-field crowd and our jaws all hit the floor.

We knew it when mammoth Mark McGwire came nose-to-nose with Roger Maris’ revered history during his 61st home run of 1998. “Pardon me for a moment while I stand and applaud,” he told us as the first baseman trotted into the record books. Sure, it may have sounded a little rehearsed, but there was sincerity in Buck’s voice that displayed the awe he had for this timeless moment.

His legendary calls reverberate like a living journal of nearly half the storied and lengthy history of the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet, it is not the celebrated calls forever engraved in baseball’s past that we will remember.

The calls we will miss will be his constant voice of everyday play-by-play. Calls like the warming words from Florida of the first pitch of spring training while St. Louis still lies in winter’s grasp. Those early descriptions of double plays and stolen bases thawed the frost and helped our minds sway in a warm breeze to the thoughts of the boys of summer captivating the nation. Calls like Buck’s “That’s a winner” when the Cardinals had prevailed triumphantly.

Now, with one last call, we knew this ride would eventually come to a halt. Just as the roller coaster at the summer carnival brakes and slows after a thrilling ride, the end is bittersweet. As he said each night when the broadcast came to an end, “So long for just a while.” So long, Jack Buck. Thank you for the stories you used to tell, for you were the one who could make us believe all the magic we heard was really true.

Jared Kwarta

Resident

Ames