If Ben Franklin were alive today, he’d probably smell awful and he’d have to agree that three things are certain in life – death, taxes and people hating ol’ biased Joe Buck. Sure enough, baseball fans complained to the highest heavens and lowest hells about his alleged love for the St. Louis Cardinals during last year’s World Series, and they absolutely bitched and moaned again this year during the NLCS. So of course the San Francisco Chronicle asked Tim McCarver’s babysitter what he thinks about these accusations.
“We get it everywhere we go,” said Buck, referring to himself and partner Tim McCarver. “It’s not unique to San Francisco. It doesn’t matter where we are.”
“It’s easily explainable in the baseball world,” said Buck. “Fans are used to hearing their hometown guys. When you come at it objectively, people aren’t used to it. It gets frustrating. You want to say, ‘No, I don’t hate the Giants.’ “
A very diplomatic and reasonable response by Buck, who I sometimes feel bad for because of all of the hate that he receives from baseball and football fans alike. But there’s another side to this coin that people don’t often recognize – a lot of Cardinals fans think that Buck is biased against the Cardinals. And he had a response for that as well.
“If it makes people feel any better, I get the same thing in St. Louis,” said Buck. “People say I’m against the Cardinals.”
As a Cardinals fan, I don’t think he’s biased against the Cardinals because that’s silly. His dad is a legend within the franchise. I do, however, believe that he tries too hard to make it seem like he’s not biased sometimes, like after St. Louis won the 2006 World Series and he was just sort of like, “Cardinals win. Thanks for watching.” But then, it also wouldn’t please anyone if he shouted, “Did you see that, dad? Suck it, Tigers!” Buck’s reasoning for why fans hate him so much is that we always want to hear our hometown guys calling the big games, but I don’t think that’s entirely true, because most hometown announcers are awful, too.
Yet, I can’t explain why people hate him. He’s like that Kids in the Hall sketch about the guy who is divorcing his wife because she hits him and her reasoning is that he’s just so punchable, like he emits a pheromone that makes people want to push him into traffic.
Basically, Buck will just always be in a lose/lose situation because of his DNA, and especially since Artie Lange made it so much fun to hate him.
(Banner via)
