Son Of A Buck, Mccarver Back For 7th Straight Series

When Tim McCarver takes the microphone for Fox on Saturday at Yankee Stadium, he’ll be working his seventh straight World Series for his third network with just about every son of a Buck around.

You might say that where McCarver is concerned, the Buck stops here.

In the booth with McCarver, as Fox begins its first World Series, will be co-analyst Bob Brenly and play-by-play announcer Joe Buck, 27, son of Hall of Fame announcer Jack Buck. McCarver worked the 1990 and ‘91 World Series for CBS with the elder Buck.

“The apple does not fall far from the tree,” McCarver said.

That’s not to say McCarver does a double take every time Joe Buck cranks up his home run call.

“They’re not that similar,” he said. “There are similarities, but they are very distinctively different broadcasters.”

One of the most distinctive of those differences is that Joe Buck actually has some rapport with McCarver. Jack Buck didn’t. In those two first years of CBS’ four-year deal with baseball, Jack Buck and McCarver left boot marks all over each other.

In Jack Buck’s defense, that wasn’t hard to do with McCarver, who would have been a great 10th grade trigonometry teacher, the way he belabors a point. And in McCarver’s defense, that wasn’t hard to do with Jack Buck, who’s also bored a few 15-year-olds to death in his day.

“Jack was schooled in radio, and he was the voice of the Cardinals for many years,” McCarver said. “Joe grew up in TV. It’s hard to believe he is only 27. It seems like he’s 50.”

McCarver, a former St. Louis Cardinals catcher, worked his first World Series as a broadcaster in 1985 with ABC. He also worked with Al Michaels and Jim Palmer for ABC in 1987 and ‘89, when he began his streak of World Series.

He did the World Series for CBS from 1990-93. There was no World Series because of the strike in 1994, allowing the streak to continue, and McCarver was back at the mike in 1995 with ABC, which shared the World Series with NBC.

Out takes

Bob Uecker lost his opportunity to ride the blimp when the Yankees wrapped up the American League pennant in Baltimore on Sunday. If the Yankees had come home to finish the series, Uecker would have thumbed a 5-hour ride on the blimp.

Now, he’ll have to wait until next year.

I know why Fox needs a three-man booth with McCarver. You need one guy to sit on him, the other to gag him. Don’t laugh. There’s a glimmer of truth there.

The addition of Brenly to Fox’s team seems to have quieted McCarver a little. Let’s see if it lasts when he gets really excited.

“It forces you to be a bit more succinct,” McCarver said. “You have to throw your darts in a smaller circle when you make your comments. But you adjust. Whether it’s two or three, it’s the guys you work with. If you genuinely like them, it makes it a lot easier.”

ABC will show a 1-hour documentary, “Hardball: The Story of Doc and Darryl,” Thursday night, and Classic Sports Network has a 2-hour “Cut to the Chase” Friday.

Hardball is an ABC News profile of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, who both resumed troubled careers this year with the Yankees. “Cut to the Chase” features memorable moments from past World Series, spanning 30 years of great pitching, great comebacks and heroic homers.