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It’s back to his sportscasting roots this Monday, when he’s set to return to the Cardinals’ broadcast team and be alongside Chip Caray to call the Birds’ home game against the Texas Rangers on Bally Sports Midwest. The pregame show begins at 6 p.m., 45 minutes before the first pitch is scheduled to be thrown.

It will be the second time BSM tries to pair the descendants of two of the most popular announcers in the illustrious history of the team’s broadcasters, Chip’s grandpa, Harry Caray, and Joe’s father, Jack Buck. The game in May against the Cubs that they were supposed to do together was rained out. This time, it will be a contest against the MLB team from the north Texas metroplex.

“Can’t wait to work with Joe, who I will have to remind it’s not the Dallas Cowboys,� Caray recently quipped on the air when talking about Monday’s telecast. “... We’re really excited about it. It will be a lot of fun.�

Buck, who broadcast his hometown Cardinals on radio and TV for about a decade and a half at the beginning of his career, relinquished his local duties after they had dwindled to just a handful of games in 2007 as his national career blossomed.

He became the play-by-play voice of MLB and NFL games on Fox as the centerpiece of his nearly 28 years there before moving to ESPN three football seasons ago. He gave up baseball broadcasting when he switched networks and hasn’t called an MLB game since the final contest of the 2021 World Series. So the game that was rained out would have rekindled his connection to the Cardinals as well as the sport that has been key in the family business. Thus, rescheduling the appearance was a priority.

“There was a desire on both sides to get it done,� Buck, 55, said. “It feels like unfinished business.�

It’s unfinished in more than one way. Not only did he have his scheduled BSM game limited to some banter with Caray on a night in which a pitch never was thrown, but he somewhat abruptly left Fox. He had intended to do one more baseball season, but after Troy Aikman jumped to “Monday Night Football,� Fox let Buck out of his contract a year early to join his longtime NFL broadcast partner on ESPN. So Buck really didn’t have closure to that mammoth anchor of his career.

Bally Sports Midwest executive producer Larry Mago was so intent on rescheduling Buck that he said he contacted him on the night of the rainout about doing so.

“He had a few open dates in his calendar,� Mago said.

Mago didn’t want to hesitate.

“Let’s get the first one,� he said.

Other than the aborted attempted appearance in May, Buck hasn’t had a broadcasting assignment since calling an NFL playoff game in January — although he has made occasional guest appearance on some shows and done public speaking. But his schedule picks up this week.

After his Cards broadcast on Monday, he’s set to call the NFL’s Hall of Fame game on Thursday night — Chicago vs. Houston in Canton, Ohio. It will be shown on ABC (KDNL, Channel 30 locally) as well as ESPN. So doing baseball on Monday will be a good slot for his return to the air.

“It made sense what with me doing a football game on Thursday,� he said. “Getting cranked back into the work mode is a good thing.�

The background

The postponed game was not called off until after a lengthy wait in which Caray and Buck were able to reminisce some about their family lineage. But a disappointment to many viewers who wanted to hear more was that BSM filled most of the delay with taped programming not related to the Cardinals. The upside now to that is that the announcers haven’t exhausted all their material, and neither has Bally with the pre-produced segments it had planned to show that night.

“There is a pretty good volume of stuff on Jack, Harry and flashbacks of Joe,� Mago said, adding that those elements will be used “in and out of commercial breaks,� things that “never got used. They’re all good to go.�

There might be less family talk than would have occurred in Buck’s originally scheduled appearance.

“It will be a little different because it’s not a Cubs game and it’s later in the season,� Mago said.

Both teams are in the playoff chase, plus the trade deadline is looming. That figures to lead to some deeper baseball talk than might have happened previously.

Contrasting styles

A lot has been made about Buck’s return, but he remembers a lesson he got long ago from his father:

“I’m sure Cardinals fans, or baseball fans in general, are tired of hearing about this,� Buck said of his appearance. “And this is the opposite of what my dad taught me, that nobody cares about the announcers. ... I just want to have fun with Chip, who was unbelievably welcoming before.�

Buck is eager to find out how he and Caray will bond calling the game, saying he has “no idea how this will go.�

“His style and mine are completely opposite,� Buck said. “He kind of blew my eardrums out� when they were talking to open the rained-out telecast. “He’s a lot louder than I am — I wish I had that volume. I just don’t have it after (a nerve ailment in his left vocal cord in) 2011. So it will be interesting to see how the two of us mesh. He’s amped up, too. He flung the door open to his booth, their booth, to me, my boys and my wife. He was very welcoming.�

Buck missed out on calling a game against the Cards’ biggest rival, the Cubs, but his rescheduled assignment pits the teams involved in one of the most memorable World Series contests ever, Game 6 in 2011 that went back and forth and ended on David Freese’s 11th-inning homer that Buck called on Fox.

“It’s still the greatest game I ever witnessed, let alone broadcast,� Buck said.

Because of that history for Buck, having his Cards return game to be against the Rangers — in the same stadium the epic contest unfolded — is “the next-best thing to Cardinals-Cubs,� he said.

Buck had one of his finest calls as the game ended that night. As the ball Freese hit sailed out of the yard, Buck simply enthusiastically said: “We will see you tomorrow night.� That paid homage the nearly identical way his father described Kirby Puckett’s game-ending homer, also in the 11th inning, almost 20 years to the day before that on national TV.

So it should be a nice fit in multiple ways for Buck to return to the Birds booth on Monday — weather permitting.

“I told all my friends not to wash their cars,� he quipped.

Rain is not in the forecast. But if the game would be postponed, Buck would be intent on rescheduling again.

“I want to do a game,� he said. “We’d laugh about it and find another date.�

Lindenwood’s Amsinger steps up

MLB Network studio host Greg Amsinger, who grew up in St. Charles and went to college at Lindenwood, is filling in for Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Ernie Johnson for the rest of the season and postseason on TNT’s studio coverage of Major League Baseball.

Johnson recently issued a statement thanking TNT management for “allowing me the time away to take care of a family matter during the baseball season.�

TNT has regular-season games on Tuesday nights, and Amsinger, who has a breezy approach, began there last week. He serves as the point man for commentary from former big leaguers Pedro Martinez, Jimmy Rollins and Curtis Granderson.

“I love to have fun talking baseball, and no group laughs harder than the ‘MLB on Tuesday’ studio team,� Amsinger, 45, said in a statement, calling it “a Tuesday night baseball party with Curtis, Jimmy and Pedro!�

While Johnson has an extensive baseball broadcasting background, he is best known for anchoring TNT’s raucous “Inside the NBA� show.

“I look forward to returning to the studio for the start of the NBA season,� Johnson said in the statement.

That show has been in limbo beyond the coming season, which now is shaping up as a lame-duck year as the NBA decided to divvy its next package up among other networks when the deals take effect for the 2025-26 season. But TNT parent company Warner Bros. Discovery had the contractual right to match a competing offer and did so with a bid from Amazon Prime Video that calls for it to stream regular-season games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. But the NBA rejected the TNT bid, leading WBD to file a lawsuit Friday challenging that decision.