Broadcasting legend turned down ESPN’s offer: ‘I’ve done all that stuff’

Don’t expect to see more of Joe Buck in the baseball booth beyond this week. The ESPN announcer said he already passed on the chance to call a playoff game last season.

During Buck’s recent appearance on the “Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch,” Buck said ESPN approached him last season and asked if he wanted to call one of the wild-card games the network was broadcasting. He declined.

“That was on the table last year if it was something that I wanted to do,” Buck said. “When ESPN had their games in the early round, it just was at a bad time. We were doing a (Denver) Broncos game and then I would have had to do the old stuff like leave in the middle of the night, go do a Tuesday game after Monday Night Football.”

Buck added that the logistics of covering the game would have made for a difficult commute.

“Believe me, I’m not saying I was the luckiest guy in the world. I wrote a book about that. I got to do any of it,” Buck said. “But I just feel like that’s a chapter of my life that it’s an itch that doesn’t need to be scratched anymore. I’ve done all that stuff.”

Buck is set to make a rare ESPN/baseball appearance in the booth for the Jackie Robinson Day broadcast of the Mets and Dodgers on April 15. He’ll be joined in the booth by SNY’s Ron Darling, SportsNet LA’s Orel Hershiser and ESPN MLB reporter Buster Olney.

Buck has called 24 World Series, 22 MLB All-Star Games and five U.S. Opens in golf. He became ESPN’s Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer in 2022 alongside color analyst Troy Aikman.

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