Even though Joe Buck is better known these days as the voice of ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” his broadcasting career is rooted in baseball, including calling most World Series games on television.
On Wednesday, Buck got a call he thought would take at least a few years. He learned that he had received the Ford C. Frick Award for Excellence in Broadcasting from Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Buck is not only the 50th winner of the Frick Award, but he, along with his father Jack, become the only father-son duo to win the honor. Jack Buck, who broadcast St. Louis Cardinals games from 1954 to 2021 and was the lead announcer on CBS’s baseball package in 1990 and ’91, receiving the award in 1987.
“I’m surprised in a lot of ways. I didn’t think it was going to happen right now,” Buck said. “I was telling the group that called to tell me that my best memory of my father as a Major League Baseball broadcaster was in Cooperstown, New York, in 1987, and what it meant to him, what it meant to our family to see him receive the award. To see the joy and pride he had for what he did.”
Joe Buck will receive the award during the Hall’s awards presentation on July 25, 2026, the day before the induction ceremony in Cooperstown. At age 56, Buck became the second-youngest Frick Award winner, behind only Vin Scully, who was 54 when he was named the 1982 winner.
Buck grew up in St. Louis and called games for the Triple-A Louisville Redbirds in 1989 and ’90 after graduating from Indiana University. He joined his father in 1991 to direct Cardinals broadcasts, holding the position until 2007. Jack Buck died in June 2002 at the age of 77.
“I was lucky to call Jack Buck my father and my best friend. I’m lucky to be the son of Carroll Buck. I don’t take for granted the awards and what have you because I always felt like I had a leg up at the beginning of my career and I did. I’m the first one to admit that. But I’m glad that when I was a kid, I looked up to him and I wanted to be with him. I think the greatest gift my father gave me was his To be allowed to be in the room with him is something I’d like to think is still ahead of me, but it’s the greatest honor I can get and knowing what he might be thinking and feeling on this day is what makes it special.
“I miss her talk [during his speech] He had the honor of being the eyes and ears for Cardinal fans wherever the Cardinals went, and he took great pride in being the conduit between wherever the Cardinals were playing and the fans who were listening. It always resonated with me.”
Buck joined Fox Sports when they began calling NFL games in 1994. Two years later, they acquired the rights to Major League Baseball and Buck was made the lead announcer with Tim McCarver as analyst. McCarver retired from broadcasting after the 2013 season and received the Frick Award in 2021.
Buck was 27 when he made his first World Series appearance in 1996. He continued to appear at the Fall Classic in 1998 and annually thereafter from 2000–21. His 135 World Series games make him one of six American play-by-play announcers to reach the century mark in the Fall Classic, NBA Finals or Stanley Cup Finals. Scully had 126 World Series games on radio and television.
Buck also worked 21 All-Star Games and 26 League Championship Series for Fox before joining ESPN as the voice of “Monday Night Football” in 2022.
Since moving to ESPN, Buck called a game on Opening Day last year and worked a Cardinals game with Chip Caray in 2023. Buck said there is a possibility of doing some more games for ESPN in the future.
He said, “I think of myself probably first and foremost as a baseball announcer because that’s what I was around the most. I love the game. I’m a fan of the game.” “I still dream at night being a baseball announcer. I think all announcers have the same nightmare where you show up to a game and you can’t see anybody on the field, you don’t know anybody’s name and you’re trying to make your way through the broadcast. All those baseball games in my dreams are there. So it’s in my genetics, it’s in my DNA. I grew up in Busch Stadium as a kid and Yes, baseball will always be first and foremost in my heart.”
Buck becomes the sixth broadcaster to win both the Frick Award and the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, joining Jack Buck, Dick Enberg, Curt Gowdy, Al Michaels and Lindsey Nelson.
A broadcaster must have 10 consecutive years of experience with a network or team, and the ballot was chosen by a subcommittee of past winners that included Marty Brenneman, Joe Castiglione and Bob Costas, as well as broadcast historian David J. Halberstam and Kurt Smith. At least one candidate must be a foreign language broadcaster.
The voters are 13 former winners – Brenneman, Castiglione, Costas, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Jaime Jarrin, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Michaels, John Miller, Eric Nadel, Dave Van Horn and Tom Hamilton – as well as historians Halberstam, Smith and former Dallas Morning News writer Barry Horn.
Cardinals’ John Rooney and Brian Anderson milwaukee brewers Ballot was a newcomer this year, joining returnees Skip Carrey, Rene Cardenas, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucette, Duane Kuiper and John Sterling. Buck was on the ballot after being removed last year, and Dan Shulman was on the ballot for the third time in four years.
