Joe Buck, the multipurpose Fox sports broadcaster, has called almost every World Series for the last two decades, beginning with the revival of the New York Yankees dynasty in 1996. Ever since, he has been criticized for banality, bias, and boredom, or as I like to call them, the triple Zzz’s. Maybe that’s just the nature of the national pastime. But as play-by-play man in Super Bowl 42, Buck described a once-in-an-epoch reception by Giants reserve David Tyree as if he were performing on Iggy Pop karaoke night. Never have periods been so appropriate to punctuate a transcription. (“Eli Manning stays on his feet … airs it out downfield … it is … caught by Tyree. Inside the 25, and a timeout taken.”) In a stunning career turn, Buck was assigned to start commentating golf a couple of years ago.
But the negative feedback has become excessive, to the point of wild. Consider this tweet from Buck in August 2013: “Getting ripped for my ‘biased’ calls for AND against [the] Yankees in today’s game. Only problem is I’m not doing the game.” Pity the therapist who had to ask his new patient, “So you say you’ve been hearing voices in your head?”
