Watching the NFL playoffs last weekend, while drowning my sorrows in the Colts' loss (OK, that's a lie), I came to an inescapable conclusion.
Joe Buck is everywhere.
Yes, the ubiquitous Fox Sports headline act, he of "Slam-a-lam-a-ding-dong!" fame, is out of control and cannot be stopped.
Over the last few years, Buck has risen to the top of the network's sports broadcast team in both football and baseball. If Fox is covering an important major sporting event, there's a decent chance Buck is on the case.
How about Super Bowl XLII, taking place two weeks from this Sunday? Joe Buck's calling it. Every year's baseball playoffs, including the World Series? Buck is on it. Red Sox/Yankees games that take place seemingly every Saturday afternoon on the network's game of the week? Joe Buck won't pass it up. Execution of Timothy McVeigh? Buck's all over it.
All right, I was kidding on the last one. But you see my point.
The odd thing about the saturation of Joe Buck is that this is not the first time it has happened. In the late 1980s, when current ABC and ESPN broadcaster Brent Musburger was working for CBS, the network loved him so much that he was pretty much covering every sport.
In his heyday, Musburger broadcast the showcase college football game on CBS each Saturday and then would zip back to host the network's NFL pregame show on Sunday. He also was the No. 1 play-by-play man for the NCAA basketball tournament each year, he broadcast the NBA Finals and the Masters golf tournament and once he even hosted the New Year's Eve countdown.
Ultimately, Musburger ended up leaving the network, with the metaphorical straw that broke the camel's back seemingly coming when he started doing Major League Baseball games on top of everything else. But now we have Musburger, Part Deux.
Buck is the showcase broadcaster in two major sports for Fox, the only play-by-play man on any network to have that distinction. In fact, along with Curt Gowdy and Al Michaels, he's one of only three broadcasters to ever be the top dog in both the NFL and Major League Baseball on one network.
But in 2006, Buck nearly had his own moment of metaphorical camel's paralysis.
The broadcaster was named host of Fox's NFL pregame show for last season, with the show going wherever Buck's assigned game happened to be, in the vein of ESPN's College Gameday pregame show. After one year of that, Buck elected to stick with the broadcast booth, with colleague Curt Menefee replacing him as host.
Luckily, the network, when it acquired rights to the Bowl Championship Series college football games in 2006, had enough sense not to try to slot Buck into that job as well. I will, however, withhold comment on the sensibility level of bringing on Thom Brennaman and Matt Vasgersian in those roles.
Sports media is a great field to be in. However, the job, in my humble opinion, anyway, thrives on mixing it up and keeping broadcasters in their best areas of expertise. This usually ensures viewers the best product possible.
This column is not written as a criticism of Joe Buck as an announcer. He is one of the better ones in the business, and, particularly in NFL games, he does a great job. However, it seems unhealthy - for Buck, viewers and the network alike - to put him on virtually every important broadcast.
Write to Andy at ndistops@hotmail.com
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