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.
Game 7 of the World Series goes down tonight, and I think I’d be a bad sports blogger if I didn’t tell you to put aside whatever reservations you have about watching boring-old baseball and watch it. Don’t watch an all new episode of ‘Chuck’, don’t watch any of the season’s 14 new shows about how fairy tales are happening in real life, don’t watch Smackdown. Watch baseball. These two teams have played a hell of a series, and no matter what goes down tonight they deserve your attention. Watch it with your son, and use Joe Buck as an example of how you’re good at your job, so no matter what your child wants to do with his life, he can always do your job, only way worse. Fathers and sons, and all of that.
