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Joseph Francis Buck (born April 25, 1969 in St. Petersburg, Florida) is a Fox Network sportscaster, and the son of Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Buck.
Buck's broadcasting career began in 1989, while he was an undergraduate at Indiana University. That year he did baseball play-by-play for the Louisville Redbirds, a minor league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, and was a reporter for ESPN's coverage of the Triple-A All-Star Game. Beginning in 1992, Buck followed in his father's footsteps by broadcasting for the Cardinals on local radio and television.
In 1994, Buck was hired by Fox (legend has it that Buck's mother Carole helped him get the job) and at the age of 25 became the youngest man ever to announce a regular slate of National Football League games on network television. In 1996, he was named Fox's lead play-by-play voice for Major League Baseball; he was given the same job for the network's NFL coverage in 2002.
Joe Buck has teamed with Tim McCarver, who had previously worked with his father Jack on telecasts for CBS from 1990-1991, for baseball telecasts and Troy Aikman & Cris Collinsworth for football telecasts.
Buck is only the third announcer to handle a television network's lead MLB and NFL coverage in the same year (following NBC's Curt Gowdy and ABC's Al Michaels), and has won four sports Emmy Awards for his work with Fox.
Beginning in 2004, Buck appeared in a series of television commercials for Budweiser beer. In one of them, he helped popularize the catch-phrase "Slam-A-Lama-Ding-Dong!"
In January 2005, Buck became embroiled in controversy after making some on-air comments criticizing the actions of Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss during a playoff game against the Green Bay Packers. Vikings owner Red McCombs requested, to no avail, that Fox remove Buck from future playoff telecasts involving the team.
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