The voice of the World Series for a generation, Joe Buck is returning to national MLB for Opening Day.
Buck is set to call the Brewers-Yankees MLB Opening Day game for ESPN, Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported Tuesday, marking his first national MLB assignment since leaving FOX after the 2021 season. (He called a Cardinals game for local television alongside Chip Caray last year.)
Buck told Marchand that the game will be a one-off assignment and not the beginning of a full-time return to the baseball booth.
According to Marchand, Buck was given the option to select his partners for the game and chose former Yankee manager Joe Girardi — who works Yankees games for YES and Cubs games for Marquee — and Brewers analyst Bill Shroeder.
Buck left FOX to along with his NFL partner Troy Aikman to join ESPN’s Monday Night Football in 2022, ending his run as the face of Fox Sports. He was the lead MLB play-by-play voice for FOX starting with the network’s first season of coverage in 1996 and ended up working 24 World Series for the network — tied as the most ever, alongside his longtime partner Tim McCarver.
His relationship with baseball became complicated over the years, as he made public statements indicating an ambivalence to the game. That, combined with a shrinking schedule as football became his primary focus, made him a target for criticism.
After he left FOX in 2022, it was reported that Buck had planned to leave his MLB role even had he stayed with the network.
Buck may not have many more opportunities to call the occasional MLB game for ESPN, as the network’s future with the league is uncertain. ESPN can exercise an opt-out in its MLB contract that would allow it to exit its contract after next season, and per the recent reports, MLB has signaled that it has no plans to renegotiate a new deal in that scenario.
