Long before Jason Benetti was accepting word challenges on live broadcasts, Joe Buck was fielding requests from celebrities.
Earlier this week, the Detroit Tigers revealed that play-by-play voice Jason Benetti incorporated some ridiculous words into a recent broadcast at the players’ request. Those words included suggestions such as funkytown, yellowtail, Fortnite, pineapples, and perpendicular. Amazingly, Benetti made it all happen, further entrenching himself as one of the best play-by-play voices in sports.
Jerry Reinsdorf might read this and think incorporating “Funkytown” into a game doesn’t make someone a great announcer, but Joe Buck would beg to differ. Buck joined ESPN Radio’s Chris Carlin and Joe Fortenbaugh Thursday afternoon, where he was asked about Benetti’s feat. Considering Buck has previously admitted to accepting similar on-air challenges, Carlin asked the voice of ESPN’s Monday Night Football if he still fields those requests.
“Every once in a while,” Buck admitted. “It depends on who the friend is. If the friend is like somebody that’s well known, like Vedder one time gave me a word that Springsteen had given to him, and I got it into a game.”
Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder can do it, although it sounds like Buck has outgrown the common folk. But the visual of Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder watching Monday Night Football and giggling as they text Joe Buck something like, “Say rooty tooty fresh and fruity!” will now be forever entrenched in my brain.
“It’s easier to do it on a local broadcast,” Buck admitted. “So when my friends would give me a word like, ‘Octopus,’ and I couldn’t figure out a way to put it in, I would just swallow my pride and at the end of the inning say, ‘After four, the Cardinals lead the Pirates 4-2, octopus.’ That way, it got in. It made no sense; I couldn’t really weave it in, but I didn’t really care.”
Buck did it on a national broadcast in 2007, when Conan O’Brien made a pledge to donate $1,000 to the charity of his choice if he worked “jub-jub” into a World Series broadcast. And in the third inning of Game 1, Buck said “jub-jub.”
In 2017, Buck told Graham Bensinger that he stopped people from sending word suggestions after others working on the broadcast told him it wasn’t a great look. Lame. But Buck still seems willing to make an exception for Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder.
