Hall of Fame Sports Broadcaster. He is best remembered for his broadcast work announcing the Major League Baseball Games of the St. Louis Cardinals. Nicknamed "Jack," he was born John Francis Buck, the third of seven children, and son of a railroad accountant. From an early age he dreamed of becoming a sports announcer, with his early exposure to sports broadcasting coming from listening to Boston Red Sox baseball games announced by Fred Hoey. In 1939 he moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio where his father had a job with the Erie Railroad. After graduating from high school in December 1942 he worked on large iron ore freight boats that traveled the Great Lakes. In June 1943 he was drafted into the US Army and after completing basic training, he became an instructor and assigned the rank of corporal. In February 1945 he was sent to the European Theater of Operations and during the Battle of Remagen he was wounded and was sent to Le Mans, France to recover. He returned to the US in April 1946 and was discharged from the US Army. He then enrolled at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, majoring in radio speech, and crafted his play-by-play skills broadcasting Ohio State basketball games. After college, he called games for the Columbus Red Birds, a Triple-A (American Association) affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, in 1950 through 1951. He spent the 1953 season as voice of another AAA Cardinals affiliate, the International League Rochester Red Wings on radio station WHEC (AM). His work there earned him an invitation to join the big-league Cardinals' broadcast team in St. Louis the following season. In 1954 he began broadcasting Cardinals games for KMOX radio, teaming with Harry Caray, Milo Hamilton, and later Joe Garagiola. In 1959 he was dropped from the Cardinals booth in 1959 to make room for Buddy Blattner. The following year, he called Saturday Game of the Week telecasts for ABC. In 1961 he was re-hired by the Cardinals after Blattner departed and Garagiola left the following year, leaving Caray and Buck as the team's broadcast voices through 1969. After Caray was fired by the Cardinals following the 1969 season, he assumed the team's lead play-by-play role. In 1972 retired Cardinals third baseman Mike Shannon joined Buck in the broadcast booth, beginning a 28-year partnership. On Cardinals broadcasts, he routinely punctuated St. Louis victories with the expression, "That's a winner!" A renowned football broadcaster, in 1964 he began calling National Football League games for CBS television, following a four-year stint doing telecasts of the rival American Football League for ABC. He called Chicago Bears games in his first two CBS seasons, then switched to Dallas Cowboys games, including the famous "Ice Bowl" championship game in 1967. After the network moved away from dedicated team announcers, he continued to call regional NFL action through 1974, as well as several NFC Championship Games and Super Bowl IV. He also called the 1965 Cotton Bowl Classic for CBS. In 1975 he temporarily left his Cardinals baseball duties in order to host the NBC pregame show "GrandStand," alongside Bryant Gumbel. In the 1976 and 1977 seasons, he called regional NFL play-by-play for NBC. In 1977 he returned to St. Louis Cardinals baseball full-time. He served as the CBS Radio voice of "Monday Night Football" (teaming with Hank Stram) for nearly two decades (1978 to 1984 and again from 1987 to 1995). Additionally, he called numerous playoff games for CBS Radio, including 17 Super Bowls (the most of any announcer). He also served as a radio broadcaster for the football Cardinals in 1980 and 1981 and returned to calling Sunday NFL games for CBS television from 1982 to 1987. He was also the original voice of the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League. He was paired with Jay Randolph and Gus Kyle on Blues broadcasts and covered the 1968 Stanley Cup Final for KMOX radio and was succeeded after one season by broadcaster Dan Kelly. He also broadcast for the St. Louis Hawks and Rochester Royals of the National Basketball Association, and called professional wrestling, boxing, and bowling at various times in his career. From 1983 until 1989 he teamed with the likes of Sparky Anderson, Bill White, and Johnny Bench for World Series radio broadcasts on CBS. After two years of calling baseball telecasts (including the Saturday afternoon Game of the Week, All-Star Game, National League Championship Series, and World Series), he was dismissed by CBS. With his health declining over the course of the 1990s, he decided to reduce his schedule to calling only Cardinal's home games (or 81 games a year unless there was a "special occurrence"). One of his final public appearances was on September 17, 2001, at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, the first night that Major League Baseball resumed after the terrorist attacks of September 11. He stirred emotions by reading a patriotic-themed poem during the pregame ceremonies that he had written. Suffering from lung cancer and Parkinson's disease he died at the age of 77. He received numerous awards, including the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996. The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame inducted him twice, as a media personality (1980) and Missouri sports legend (2000). The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association named him as Missouri Sportscaster of the Year 22 times and inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 1990. He was also inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 1990, the Missouri Athletic Club Hall of Fame in 1993, the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995, and the National Association of Broadcasters Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2005. The American Sportscasters Association ranked Buck 11th in its listing of the Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time in 2009. The Jack Buck Award, presented by the Missouri Athletic Club, in recognition of the enthusiastic and dedicated support of sports in St. Louis, is named in his honor. He is honored with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame and in 1998 a bronze statue of him was erected at the entrance to Busch Memorial Stadium (and moved to a new location outside the current Busch Stadium in 2007). In 2009 the American Sportscasters Association ranked him 11th in its listing of the Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time. A section of Interstate 64/US-40 in St. Louis is named the Jack Buck Memorial Highway in his honor. In all, he called 11 World Series, 18 Super Bowls, and four Major League Baseball All-Star Games.