The Press Box - Dokoupil, Part Deux, and the Death of a Newspaper. Plus, ESPN’s Joe Buck.

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel start the show with Part 2 of their analysis of Tony Dokoupil’s first week as the CBS Evening News host (01:02). They dive into the technical difficulties, the quality of the writing, and one thing Bryan and Joel think he did well this week. Next, the guys discuss the death of a Pittsburgh newspaper, and what this means for local news (25:49). After that, Bryan and Joel have a conversation about how to be a successful sports columnist in today’s media age (33:09). The show ends with an interview with ESPN’s Joe Buck, where he talks about his black eye (46:00), his father Jack Buck (49:36), announcing with Troy Aikman (1:00:04), and so much more, here on the Press Box. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Guest: Joe Buck Producer: Bruce Baldwin Additional Production Support: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello media consumers. Welcome to Press Box Thursday. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson back together again. That's right. Producer Bruce Baldwin also back together again. Coming up on the press box, Howard Tony DeCople and Barry Weiss faring in their efforts to reinvent the CBS Evening News.

We'll talk about the death of a newspaper in Pittsburgh, how to be a sports columnist in 2026. We've got another edition of Media, Piss test. And then we talked to ESPN's Joe Buck about his black eye, his college days as a frat boy at Indiana, why Sean McDonough is his number one play-by-play announcer, and the dreams Joe has about his late father, Jack Buck. But first, Joel, we got some news.

Call it the Copel Part D'Ure. Let's play two. Let's play two, because since our last episode, things over at probably. Project Barry have deteriorated somewhat. By that, I mean they've tried to put on a daily newscast. I mean, you know, I would be interested and I probably, this is where I live in a bubble. I would like to know what people are saying and, you know, like gab or truth social about CBS News's efforts. Because, I mean, this is ostensibly who this is all for, right, trying to win over the trust and,

the loyalty of those folks. I would like to know what's going on over there. I would too because this was pitched at, hey, you and Dubuque, you feel like the mass media, the elites have left you behind. But we know there's a separate front, which is people in right wing land.

Are they pumping their fist and be like, finally a newscast for us? Right, yeah. It's like, man, we were waiting on CBS to turn it around, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Barry Weiss. We know that Trump sued CBS News, but now we feel that under new management, we can reembrace the CBS News product.

I watched all these newscasts back to back this week, and I got a few notes for you before we play some sound here. Okay. One is, you can really tell that Tony DeCopal is new at this. Hmm. Not new at TV, but new at evening news. we're in the thick of it kind of broadcasting. You know, I was thinking about this because that is a very specific skill set, right? It's built around one person where Monday is sort of a collaboration.

It's a, you know, a cast of thousands, so to speak, right? There's all these people coming in. You got a cooking segment here. You got, you know, Charles Barkley coming on for a segment or whatever. Tomahe-Cote stops guys. Tonner-Hawesi Coates might come through to pitch his book. Right. But this is really built around you and your ability to navigate the day's news, right?

That's a really different set of skills. And of course, if we were in being in a charitable mood, we'd be like, that seems like that's going to take time for somebody to adjust to, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. If we were doing secular grace, we would say that. And to give him some secular grace, I think his performance has improved over the course of the week. his tone Monday it was

way too giddy we got Maduro yes that's that morning stuff that's the that's the leftover morning stuff in it I guess are they

are they pumping their fists in the morning show about you know getting Maduro I don't know the whole I can see Gil King she's shaking her fist

he recovered a little bit or he improved a little bit another observation is this whole newscast moves very very quickly It is like a podcast on 1.5 speed. Oh, okay. They are trying to stick a lot of stuff in there.

They've had some success, like when they're trying to cover Venezuela. Okay, we are going to Ed O'Keefe at the White House. Then we're going to Lillia Luciano on the Colombian Venezuelan border. Then we're going to Charlie Daggita. And I'm not sure where Charlie Daggeta is. He's doing that old school newsman thing of standing outside in the dark. holding a microphone. I don't know where you are, sir,

but I appreciate you bringing that, you know, late night ambiance of network news. You are stationed somewhere. And that stuff pretty much works. I think a lot of people, if you just see the clips, you're imagining that this is free press,

the newscast. Right. What this really is, is old school CBS round the world news gathering with an untested anchor, grafted onto it and a sprinkling of Barry Weiss' politics grafted onto it. I would like to know, and I'm sure that the answer is out there, how much of that news team is new, right? Because again, you're going to, it's kind of like with the Washington Post,

like we've talked about a little bit. The institutional skeleton is still there, like the bones, the foundation of a thing is still in place. You still have to make news in a certain way. you have to get on TV in a certain way, and you can only replace so many people before you have to, you know, before things really get out of whack. So I assume that they still got a lot of those people over there. And, you know, it's going to,

until they can make more changes to decide what other, you know, ways that Barry can put her thumbprint on this thing, you know, they'll probably be a little bit closer to the old version, but still retain some of that sprinkling of Barry Weiss. People have noted that Kim Harvey, who's the EP of the evening news is relatively new in the post.

And again, I think that's some of what we're saying, right? It's the old machinery, the new leadership, the new anchor all coming together. They do this segment at the very end called Only in America, which has gotten some rotten tomatoes on Twitter. There was one about a town in Oregon where people pose nude to raise money because they wanted to get snowplows and they didn't want to raise taxes. There was another one last night, Wednesday night. where Tony D was on the Dallas Cowboys chopper with Jerry Jones.

Oh, man. You know what? I did not get a chance to see that clip. How was it? That's meant to appeal to the Brian Curtis's of the world. You got Jerry Jones and a helicopter. I will note that distinguished newsman Stephen A. Smith was on the chopper with Jerry three years ago. So this was not exactly an exclusive.

Okay. Where were they going? They were flying around Dallas because I don't know if you know this, but North Texas is really growing. It is a big area. I've been made to understand. I didn't realize that had happened in the last couple of weeks, or even years, but they were going to get on the CBS Evening News.

Yeah, well, I mean, that tollway, man, it didn't always used to go to Frisco. There's been a lot of Barry Weiss book your way to the top. This is where we remember that when she was in New York Times, she was commissioning opeds. Yeah. That was her job. Yeah. Often from big names, often from big conservative names.

Correct. So we talked about the Trump administration official she's gotten. She got Maria, Karina Machado to come on this week in what CBS called a network exclusive. I say network exclusive because she was on Hannity show the night before. That was the actual exclusive. But we could call this a network exclusive. Then they've had these items, Joel, that are. just the most low calorie news items you can imagine.

Oh, man. So, for instance, they're talking about the protests in Iran against the regime there. And they will say, there are protests happening in Iran. Donald Trump has said that he is locked and loaded and ready to defend the protesters. I'm like, that told me absolutely nothing. That showed no skepticism that Donald Trump would intervene militarily, politically, however he would intervene against the Iranian regime

to protect those protesters. Just silly stuff like that. So wait, so is this actually, because you mentioned that this was like a podcast at one and a half time speed, is it like a poorly done version of the radio at the top of the hour where they go through

the news? Because that's what it sounds like to me. Yeah, where you're just doing the like, here is 20 seconds. Here's a thing that happened. Around the world in 90 seconds. There's a little bit of 10-10 wins to it. Okay. Okay.

There was another one where DeKopa was trying to cram in just a little thought about Venezuela and how because there's regime change there, that might be bad news for Russia and China that we're trying to establish a beachhead in Venezuela. It's like, that's an interesting topic, but you can't just say that. You're right. I mean, the only reason I'm watching your newscast is so I can get information about that. Not the headline. Exactly. Do we have an expert? Yeah.

And sometimes, you know, they were talking about the new vaccine schedule from Robert Kennedy, and they had their own doctor come on and sit on the set on the set. And he explained it like very, very quickly. And DeCopo said something at the end, like, oh, it's all cleared up now. I was like, no, it's not. This is something that would require at the very least a couple of minutes to unpack and to talk about. We don't want to have those pesky experts and actually. academics to discuss the vaccine schedule.

You know, you want to get the man on the street to discuss that, if at all possible. It's my understanding is the approach here. Right. We find an uncredential doctor? Well, I mean, the uncredential doctor man on the street is actually the guy in charge of the department. Well, the apartment, so there he's that. Speaking of low calorie news, Tuesday was the fifth anniversary of the January 6th siege of the U.S. Capitol. Oh, man.

So 24 minutes into the broadcast right after the report on the resignation of NASCAR's commissioner, Tony DeKopal said this about January 6th. Also tonight, five years after the January 6th attack, a group of pardoned defendants marched through Washington. President Trump today accused Democrats of failing to prevent the attack on the Capitol, while House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the president of, quote, whitewashing it. And we move on. That is, and I don't even mean to insult college newscast by comparing it to that, but that is college newscast level reporting. Like, it's worse than that, even, because I think they would, they probably would tend to go long on that and overly, you know,

overly dig into it or whatever. But that is pretty pathetic. Yeah, I listen to that clip. That's terrible. And we talk about both sidesism. I think sometimes that phrase gets overused. That is true brain dead both sidesism. I mean, I just, I mean, the thing is that, I mean, all the footage is out there.

Everything that everybody said that day and the day is following and then the investigation has to come, we don't have to do the both sides thing here unless you are inclined to do it. And it's kind of what it seems like. Also, I assume that by talking about it, they feel that it will offend and raise the ire of the Trump White House. I assume, but it's like this January 6th, again, like there's a lot of video. There's more, a lot of angles of video that we can look at. What was super interesting, Joel, is Scott McFarland, who is CBS News as justice correspondent, tweeted out his own January 6th segment, which was very good and very informative. And wait for it, appeared on the BBC, which was interviewing McFarland about it.

And if you listen to that segment and go to his Twitter account right now and please do, he characterized Jan Sixth as not a this side, that side kind of argument, but as being about facts, facts that are being whitewashed by the administration. He used the word whitewashed in his report there. It was really strong. Yeah, but again, you would think that that's supposed to be the level. for national reporting about something at that level, right? Like, that's the kind of work you expect for people at that level.

And that's not, I mean, CBS didn't even get anywhere near it. Another segment from that Tuesday show. This was the Only in America, cute story at the end. It was about Marco Rubio and memes. Only in America, the many lives and many jobs of Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a former Florida senator. He's now the face of U.S. foreign policy. and President Trump's point man on Venezuela, all in addition to his roles as Secretary of State,

interim national security advisor, and acting national archivist and U.S. AID chief. Whatever you think of his politics, you've got to admit it's an impressive resume. And now AI memes have added to that portfolio, casting Secretary Rubio as the new governor of Minnesota, the new Shah of Iran, the Prime Minister of Greenland, the new manager of Manchester United, the head of Hilton hotels and highest of high honors of all, the new Michelin Man. Now, back in real life, of course, these memes may not add up to much, but for Rubio's hometown fans, which are many around here in Miami, it is a sign of how Florida, once an American punchline, has become a leader on the world stage.

Marco Rubio, we salute you. You're the ultimate Florida man. So I've only heard this clip. I haven't seen it. Did they show a picture of him in his football uniform at community college? I mean, because it's like that they might as well have. That was the one thing that was left out of Marco Rubio's impressive resume. Whatever you think of as politics, Joel. Damn fine, defensive back at South Miami Senior High School. Oh, my God.

There's so much there. I mean, like Trip Gabriel in New York Times noted that line at the end about Florida, Florida's place on the world stage. What the hell is that? Man, you know, it goes back to what I remember from their statement of purpose. Remember when we talked about that last episode, Embry's memo. Terrible writing. Terrible.

I mean, terrible. Reprehensibly bad. Really bad writing. And I think people underestimate that part of it when it comes to TV because it's such a visual medium. But there's a lot of writing that goes into it. And so I don't know if, I don't know what the editing process is. there anymore or whatever but i mean i surely we didn't have to land on such a cutesy line right like i mean even if you want to do it that way it makes larry king's old USA today column from the 80s

sound like Dwight macdonald go back out of here with this and did i also hear a producer or somebody laughing off camera when they were going through the memes oh i don't think of my ears to see me because remember keith old msabbyc newscast part of the part of the greatness of that was hearing the cameraman laughing. Oh, yeah, off camera and stuff. I always love that. I don't know if I'm trying to replicate some of the magic of

countdown here on the CBS evening news. I do love that segment like that because, oh, it's not just for right-winger's. It's for the kids. We're doing memes here on the CBS. Kids are going to watch us. No,

they're not. They're trying to get to that very important 25 to 54 block of viewers, man. That's where all the money is. But more towards the 25-year-old. The demo. Yeah, the memes. That's how you get them, apparently.

On the positive side, okay, maybe. Yeah. Last night, DeCopal had Bordersdard Tom Homan on the show. And they, of course, were talking about the shooting of Renee, Nicole Good in Minneapolis. DeCopal asks Herman, hey, have you ever seen an example of excessive force used by ICE during this first year of the Trump administration? Homan said, no, not one moment of excessive force. Here is DeCopold's follow-on.

I want to ask you a kind of a bald question here. I mean, just a straight-up question. You're telling me, you've never seen in your tenure any example of excessive force. You're telling me you've not heard any comment from any member of this administration that is inflammatory or racist or in any way the means. toward the immigrant community. That's what you're telling me. I know, because I've talked to people out there all over the country,

a lot of Americans are going to hear that, and they're going to be yelling at their television. They're going to be saying that the idea that's zero, there's nothing there there. You're calling them crazy. I'm not calling anybody crazy. I'm telling you what I know what I've seen. And I told you, there are over 2,000 rest of day.

I can't see every arrest. But it just comes down to zero issues, zero problem, zero comments. It's just not believable to us. a lot of people, including myself. There's nothing that you would have ICE do differently. In any of these cases, we've seen all of these videos, nothing. I have not seen ICE act outside of policy.

And if there are acting outside of policy, I'm not aware of it, there'll be an investigation that we held accountable. So there's a few things that come to mind here as I listened to that clip. I kept waiting for it to be bad, right? Because I was just like, because that's kind of in the mindset that I'm at with this newscast now.

And I was like, oh, this is actually a pretty strong interview and pretty strong pushback, right? And so I was like, yeah, that's, I mean, he's got it in him, if that's what he wants to do. And I was like, maybe that's the sign of somebody who's either heard some of the criticism. And it's like, I've got to push this guy a little bit, or he's getting his bearings and he's getting better at his job.

But it's that. And also on the Homan part of that, I mean, that is the Mike John special. I'm not aware of that. I didn't see it. So it did, you know, it didn't happen. Like that is, that's a, that's that's that that's that that's that's that's the, that is the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the publican Congress line. Like, so that that, that part. But I was impressed that he pushed push push back on him under those circumstances. Weren't you? I was too. And I was impressed by the way he said it. And by the way, if you watch this whole clip, there was a longer interview and they put the whole interview online. But in the five minutes they used on the newscast. There are other moments here too, because homeman says, I don't want to make a rush to judgment without seeing the video without an investigation. And DeCopo points out, Christy Noem has already called this an act of quote unquote domestic terrorism. Right. And he could have said, look at every tweet that J.D. Vance has put up in the last 24 hours.

Like, the administration is making a rush to judgment here, even if you are not, sir. Well, I mean, uh, J.D. Vance had said that we've got the back of the ice, like basically under pretty much, you know, under any circumstance. So, I mean, right. I mean, but that would have been a good time to have pushed back on him with that. Like, all right, well, what did Vance say then? Yeah, and I'm not sure the timing of those tweets again. He might have been talking to him earlier in the day. But he did make the point that the administration, no, at least by that point.

That's good. Fair point. Was rushing to judgment. And he also asked him, look, you've deposed Maduro in Venezuela. At the same time, the administration has removed protections from Venezuelan immigrants in the United States. So how do you square those two things? again there's been a lot of bad on this newscast there have been some moments where you're like oh my goodness this is this is sad this is brain dead both sides but credit where do he did a

good job with tom home what if he's Caleb Williams for people you know for people that don't follow sports the Chicago bear second year quarterback maybe yeah they thought oh man he was he was really bad and maybe he's maybe he's finding his footing I don't tend to think that, but I'm willing, because I'm silly in that way, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that this is a very difficult job and that maybe he will hear the criticism. And, you know, he's not 80 years old. He presumably wants to have a long career in journalism, even though he probably could retire off whatever he's making on this one. But, you know, I wouldn't want that to be my reputation. I wouldn't want my peers and colleagues to talk about me like this and say

that I'm failing and doing, not only failing, but I'm being a toady, you know? How much did you love CBS PR tweeting out that the ratings from Monday's newscasts were up 9%? I mean, God bless the person in PR who had to put that out. You got to find a bright side somewhere, man, you know? You know, and if that's what they've got, I mean, that is their job, right? I mean, they've got to spend it the best way possible. That's the best thing that they could say right now. Before we move on, Joel, do we want to hear?

here to Coppel fighting through some early stage awkwardness on the evening news? I think everybody should hear this because it is, I was like, that's what I would sound like, if I got putting that job. You may be referring to the clip we saw on Twitter where it was like, are we talking about Mark Kelly? What are we doing here? This to me was a great one because he had Pete Hexeth on his first newscast. I'm pretty sure there were like 30 more seconds to fill.

So DeCopal is going to lob a question at Charlie DeCode. That's the national security correspondent. I want you to listen to how circular this question and answer is. We're back in the CBS evening news. We've got Charlie Daggita back with us with one final question for him as well. Charlie, you've been watching this military buildup in the region there outside of Venezuela for a while now. That certainly indicated something. So the question is, what are you going to be watching for in the days ahead for what happens next?

You know, Tony, you asked Secretary Hicks at the key question. Is the United States ready to... re-engage in Venezuela. It may be entering the most volatile era session air in right now that it has for years. So the U.S. military is poised, but the question is whether they're going to stay off the coast or re-engage in Venezuela. Yeah, there seems to be a lot more that they are ready for that they're not ready to talk about publicly. Charlie, thank you very much. I appreciate it. I just love the newsman professionalism going nowhere there. What will we be watching? Well, we will be watching some things. Thank you.

We will be, okay, great. We will collectively be watching. We'll be telling you, we'll follow up on this. Can I, so there's one other thing that I have to say about this

because I did. Please. So there's a line from one of my favorite songs. It's the Onyx, the shut them down remix, and it's a line from DMX. Brian,

what's your favorite DMX song? Oh, man. I've had my mind on Tony to go full all that way. Come on. Yeah. Hit me with this man. Okay. All right.

Well, anyway, I can't say every word in the line. But essentially, he says, dudes pumped you up to watch you get beat. Okay. And such as it is, it's like, hey, man, somebody encouraged you to take a mission that only, they only did it so that they could laugh at you because they knew you were going to get your ass kicked. Like, you knew you were going to get you, you know. And I kind of feel like Tony is in sort of that situation where it's just like, I mean, look, obviously he gets the money, the notoriety, the prominence,

but one thing that I don't want is to be in front of a national stage and fail or do a job that I don't think I could do. There's just some jobs you're not going to be able to convince me to take because I'm like, I don't think I'm ready for that, or I don't think I would thrive at that. And I wonder if that is what Tony is going through right now. That Barry pumped him up to watch him get beat. And it doesn't matter to her because she's still going to be in charge.

her reputation is what it is. And she's sort of learning to live under this, you know, specter or this cloud or whatever. But like this is new to Tony. Like Tony dealt with the Tanahasi Coat's thing last year. But like for everybody to be every day waiting for you to fuck up. And, you know, questioning your journalism, ethics and everything else,

I don't know, man. That's, that's a rough deal. I'm sure the money will help. And I'm, you know, maybe he's built differently. But that doesn't seem like it'd be very fun to me. I had that same thought because he was in some Instagram comments the other day responding to people and I was like, is he reading his mentions? Ooh. Wait, was he like going back and forth with him or what?

Well, you know, not like in a super combative way, but he was not like me. No. Not like you. He was not like you. But I'm just like, did he, did he just like, all right, let's see what Twitter thinks of our main voyage in the newscast. See what Twitter thinks of her. Chan Sixth report. Okay.

One way to get a man on the street opinions, I guess, right? You know, if you don't care about experts, there are a lot of non-experts on Twitter for sure. A couple more items for you. Alert listener, Dennis Roy, asked us to talk about a death in Pittsburgh. I'm going to quote from the Washington Post story here by Laura Wagner and Scott Nover. The 240-year-old Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is shutting down following a protracted labor battle in court rulings favoring its union. The newspaper will print its final edition on May 3rd. Yeah, man, I mean, I guess it's like, you know,

there are not going to be very many markets in this country with two major newspapers anymore, right? Or two local. So like that, that is sort of a throwback, but it is troubling, right? I mean, there's a lot of jobs. There's a lot of people that are loyal to that brand. And for it to go away, that's, it never really works out. I remember when I worked in Tampa and the thought was that, man, if the Tampa Tribune goes out of business, we'll be able to seize on that. Oh, right?

It'll all be ours. It'll all be ours. Like, we won't have to compete for advertisers as much anymore. And it wasn't good for the times either. Like, it's still a great, you know, local outlet, but it's not what it was. And I think the thing is, is that another local competitor makes you better. And so, yeah, I just, when I saw this story yesterday and shableness. And shout out to who's the reader again.

It was Dennis Roy. That's right. Yeah, it just, that's just depressing. Like, I'm sure, you know, this is how you came up too. So I know it had to have been depressing to you as well. It really was. For another note of depressing news, John Greenberg, our friend over at the athletic, noted that the paper's announcement of its own demise was behind a paywall.

I mean, come on, man. Just let that roll around your head for a second. Yeah. The Post story notes that in this case, the death of a number. newspaper, for all the obvious reasons, is also a labor issue. Nova and Wagner write, ending more than three years on strike, a group of 26 post-Gazette journalists returned to work in late November after a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ordered the newspaper's owners to restore a collectively bargained contract that guaranteed

employees' benefits, including health care, pay time off, and short-term disability. The newspaper's owner assailed that ruling, warning in a statement that if allowed to stand, this decision will likely force the closure of the Post-Gazette. After the Supreme Court's order Wednesday, the Block family, the longtime owners of the newspaper, made good on that threat. A decade ago, when digital media properties were going through their unionization push, and they said, if you extend, or make us, you know, extend labor protections to the workforce, it's going to make us close.

We're going to have to do huge layoffs or whatever. And you kind of thought it was a bluff, right? I was like, what are you talking about? They're not going to do that for real. Employers always say that. Yeah, they always say that. It's always a tactic that they use in a labor fight. But as we see now, it's just, it's no longer a bluff.

Like it is a potential business strategy, so to speak. A lot of big names from the Post-Cazette Sports Department. Awful announcing notes that Jerry Dulac has been covering the Pittsburgh Steelers in golf for the paper for more than 30 years. What an old school a collection of beats. Like, you don't really don't see that anymore with somebody who has the Steelers and golf, right? That's the old Dan Jenkins won too much. Jason Mackie and a number of other great people

worked there. Ed Bouchet, if we want to go back a little bit, covers the Steelers forever before that and had the McCann Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Gene Collier, long-time columnist of the Post Gazette, who when I checked today, realized he is still writing a general interest column for the paper. it's quite a legacy there. Also, we say this every time there's bad journalism news.

There's no good way to deliver news like this. But the recording that the employees of the Post Gazette got, and that was tweeted I saw by Pittsburgh Radio Guy Colin Dunlap yesterday, where you had this woman telling them that their newspaper's closing down. I'm watching this video and I'm like, first of all, is this AI, which is always a bad question to ask, especially about news. Somebody's losing their jobs.

It's just a real person. Then it ended with, please note that I am truly sorry to deliver this message. Man, make everyone feel better. One of the last movies I saw was George Clooney up in the air. And it gave a very strong whiff of that,

like with that video. He was firmer. He was like, get out of here, you know, all right. None of this blubber. and take your take your packet and go i mean this is like you imagine just watching that that's how you learned that you've lost your job yeah man it's just it's let me would you i mean we have i don't even know if i want to ask this question but i mean man would do you tell somebody that wants to work in local

journalism today man i don't know i truly don't know i mean the thing is i don't think people want to work in it anymore in part because of this right yes there's no job security the pay isn't great it's not like people are going to love you, right? But it's really hard to have a democracy without local journalism, man. It is. And I think there's two reasons. One, there are no jobs. And number two, we've all been poisoned by the internet to think that the only news is national and international news now.

Yes, absolutely. So local news doesn't exist because we're like, why would I read this story about the city council when I can read, you know, the story about Mike Johnson or Pete Hexon. Right. And it's like, it's like this whole sphere of news just stopped existing. Because why would you, you know, given the, if you and I had given the choice, we're like, hey, man, you can read the Houston paper, the Fort Worth paper as a kid, or here's this paper, by the way, that's free in a lot of cases. You can just read stories about national issues.

You and I probably would have chosen door number two a lot of the time. Oh, man, when I used to, in my parents and everybody who knew me used to complain about this, when I'd go to a new town, I'd want to, I'd get the local. newspapers and bring them and I'd keep them forever trying to read them, right? Because I just, yeah, I wanted to know, like, what is the, you know, what's the local flavor here? Like, what's the, what's the culture coverage? What's the sports coverage? Like, all that sort of stuff. Like, who's going to cover? I mean, this is, you know, something that's particularly me. Who's covering the high school sports? I mean, again, there is another newspaper there in Pittsburgh, but like,

I just losing that sort of stuff hurts, man. A lot of people, it's particularly in a place like Pittsburgh or anywhere for that matter, the only times they're going to ever be in media, the only way that their lives are going to be remembered in a lot of ways is through the local newspaper. Right. And especially when you go to archive diving and looking for old people, the one thing that I tend to start with when I go to a library or whatever, I look through the archives of old local newspapers.

And without that, I don't even know how you begin to have like a public record in a lot of ways either. I really don't either. I just don't. One more local news story for you. Okay. A sad one would be as well, let's call it kind of sad. Okay. How to be a sports columnist now. The eternally embattled LA Times put up a job listing for sports columnist.

L.A. Times sports columnist. This is one of the great jobs from the vanishing world of newspapers. Plashy, Symers, Adiomé, Murray, Scott Osler, Mike Downey would go on and on. Oh, yeah. This is a job that young Joel and young Brian would have thought was the absolute cat's meow not that long ago.

I would have stabbed somebody to get that job. Let me tell you something. The pay has changed a little bit. According to this LA Times listing, the max rate for this job now is $125,000 a year. It's not chicken feed, but if you're comparing sports columnist salaries from the good old days and you're adjusting for inflation, that is chicken feed. Also, L.A. I mean, L.A. 25 in L.A. man, it's good money. I don't mean to, you know, dis it, but it ain't. It ain't what it used to be. It ain't. No, it ain't. No, it ain't. This got me thinking. Let's say here in 2026, you moved back to here. Houston. Okay. I moved back to Dallas Fort Worth, that growing area I heard about on the CBS.

Yeah, it was pretty big place. And you and I got our one-time dream jobs of writing a newspaper sports column there. How would we do it? How would you do that job in 2026? Man, that's a good question. I, you know, because believe it or not, a few years ago, this was a live question for me. Like I actually had, I was sort of faced with this dilemma. Houston? In Houston.

And Houston. You know, the more that I think about it, and I really like Jamel Bowie's approach to columnizing, which is that you have to kind of be on the internet, man. You kind of like, a lot of your writing has to be video, engage people, and social media, and then draw them to your writing that way instead of the other way around.

I don't think you can lead with the writing in a way, that you're more of a voice than you are of a writer in that job, I think, at this point. I agree with that. Find the people where they are. Here's the complicating factor. If I watch Joel Anderson, the TikTok account or the Instagram account, or I listen to Joel Anderson, the podcast.

It's going to make me pay for the newspaper. That's a fair point. Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is is that you got to be smart about how you pitch your piece and explain, you know, hey, look, kind of, you've got to try to draw them to the things that you're going to write. And again, I mean, I, actually, I want to hear what you have to say, because I mean, I think that writing is a core piece of it. And writing is a part of it even when you do the social media stuff

and the video stuff, right? And you want to be at all the big events. You want to be the authoritative voice on the Texans, the Rockets, the Astros, high school sports, college sports. It's like you want to seem like you're everywhere and kind of got your handle on everything. But you can't you just can't count on three days a week getting people to read your 800 words. That seems like an old paradigm. I completely agree.

And I think you would want to ask, first of all, for a podcast from the newspaper. That's right. You're like, we're doing a podcast. I'm either doing it with somebody who's already there or I'm doing it and bringing in guests, whatever it is. We have to find another way for a columnist to be a columnist. that's not in the form of a column, if that makes sense. Right. Could you do?

The authority, the opinion, hopefully the humor, the good lines, but we're taking this, we're not just doing this in print, we're doing this in another form as well. Could you, would you, because, and I thought about this, I was like, could you do some sort of a partnership with a local radio station? So that podcast is also out of that. I was wondering, it was like, we can partner together. A tale as old as time, right?

Sports columnists. They add to their. not a $125,000 a year salary with a radio show. You've seen that happen many times. Yeah. Right. To answer your question, I wrote down a few things I think make this really hard if you're starting from scratch in 2026.

I'm not talking about the Plashky Dan Shaughnessy tier, but let's just say somebody, somebody's going to get this job at the LA Times and have to build this thing from the ground up. Number one is the paywall. even if you and I went back home as proud native sons, here we go, we're back. There's going to be a whole bunch of people that are our age and younger that just like, I'm not paying for that.

I love you, but I'm not paying for it. Sorry. I've decided not to pay for news or at least this kind of news in my life, and I'm not starting now. It's just to be honest. Number one. Number two, the ubiquity of opinion. Mm-hmm.

part of the power of the old sports columnist was premised on this idea that there were three or four people in town who were paid to give their opinion about sports. That was done in terms of, it was almost what you call it like a false scarcity. You could have had eight, ten people at the newspaper that did that. But there were only a few. Sports radio didn't really exist in the same way it does stay. Certainly there was no social media. So now you're having to figure out a way to say my opinion is so, important that A, you got to read it, and B, you got to pay for it.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. You got to really, yeah. I mean, because the thing is, there's a substack. There's somebody, there's people in every Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, there's people that are doing substacks that, you know, have their own podcast that is specifically dedicated just to that. You got to be able to be, you got to be more interesting than that person, if at all possible. 100%.

Here's another one. The growing sophistication of sports writing, I think makes this tough. when I follow my Cowboys beatwriters in Dallas, they're a lot more sophisticated than sports writing of our youth. Oh, yeah. Bob Stern, who is one of the Dallas columnists I pay for, I pay for his substack where he writes mostly about the Cowboys, but about all of Dallas sports generally.

Bob knows about scheme. He knows about analytics. So he's writing what is tonally a very age-old, old school. Here's what you need to know about the Cowboys column. here's how I feel about what just happened, but it's very, very well informed. So you're going to have to convince people

that either you can play on that level or that your opinions will somehow supersede writing that is more analytically conversant, right? That is it, you're somehow as the big opinion guy coming in worse something.

Right. That they're not getting, again, not just from other writers, just from Twitter accounts that watch the Cowboys. Could you be, I don't know how many people this name will ring out. And shout out to this dude, because I used to know him pretty well back of the day. Could you be Chip Brown? Because Chip Brown, who's one of those people, I always felt like

Covered the University of Texas? Chip Brown? University of Texas, yeah, man. And he was, you know, kind of one of those guys who was like, oh, man, if he's reported something on the University of Texas or whatever, you know, people would tune in for that. Like that moved a lot of subscriptions for a time, at least about a decade or so ago. I don't know what chips. I think Chip's still at Orange Bloods or? He's not an orange blood, but he's still covering Texas. like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, I was, I was like, you know, maybe something along those lines are like, I'm the insider and I'm going to be chiving you the now that I'm going to be able to give you the now they tell a story. But before it gets to that point, right? I'm going to

give you that story more consistently than anybody else. But again, where's your time? How are you going to be able to do that? Where's your time? And I would also say that like, if you're the columnist, you know, who's getting those stories, Adam Schaefter, right? It's not other people in the market. Right. It's fair point. It's national. That's what's made this job so hard. I think it was fun. We got it when I tweeted out the, or put the rundown on Instagram day,

Mike Sealski, who is this guy in Philadelphia? He's like, why did you call me? And I was like, well, Mike Sealski is a pretty good model here. You know,

whereas it's columnizing, like in terms of like opinions, hey, this is what the Eagles need to do, but also storytelling in Philadelphia. I'm going to go find the great story, which is another, I won't say trick,

but another tactic. of the old school sports columnist that is hard to replicate, right? People read, it's like, oh man, that was a great story. Oh, what, you went and found something and did a little shoe leather, right? That, that I think, would get you there. That'd be a way to do it and distinguish yourself

from a person going to Texas suck. Yeah. What's wrong? What's wrong with C.J. Stroud? Like, that would help you diversify. But, man, again, if you're not grandfathered in from the previous generation that were built up by the power of newspapers. I just think this is a very, very hard job to start from scratch right now.

I wonder who they, I wonder if that's a job that somebody is going to get internally, uh, almost, um, but yeah, I, you know, also I want to shut Mike finger. Because Mike finger doesn't really good one. That's a good one. That's my dude. Man, you know me and Mike finger used to work together at the AP, huh? Did I tell you that? Mike's a great guy and he does a great job of doing that because I'll see, I'm like, well, that was a smart story to write. That's an interesting piece to write. Absolutely. Mike is great. Uh, and I've, uh, and I've, I've always said, I mean, he's doing fine. He doesn't need my help, but I've always thought.

I was like, oh, if he ever wanted to go national, he should have been able to do it because he's, he's fantastic at it. So yeah. Before we bring on our special guest, I want to do a little media piss test with you. Okay. Well, not with you, but I want to give you, well,

I want to submit a media test. We're at a urinal here? Okay. All right. We got Miami Ole Miss in the college football playoff tonight. Oh, man. But the piss test, and you, talking about Miami, huh?

Oh, okay. All right. But the B story in college football, actually maybe the A story, if you are not a fan of one of these teams, is the transfer portal. Oh, man. That is all happening right now. And the College Football Inquirer podcast was tackling this topic.

Andy Staples knew the perfect way to describe the portal. Football playoffs semifinals are going on. Obviously, that is the big topic of discussion this week. everywhere else where they're not still playing, they're wondering who are we losing in the transfer portal? Who are we getting in the transfer portal? It is NFL free agency on steroids. NFL free agency on steroids.

True. Hey man, Andy, man, he would, I mean, there's a former offensive lineman, you know? He would know. What are you saying about the, whoa, you make some interesting accusation. You know, Andy, man, Andy looks. good man let me tell you something like he used to be you know offensive linemen at university of

florida uh down there and um when i see him i'm like man what what is he doing he looks good he looks good so i was just like you know this and you know what they say you know the big those big linemen and they cut down and all of a sudden they look you know like cyclist all of a sudden so whatever you're doing and you keep doing it okay congratulations dandy you've impressed jol and that's not an easy man to impress i'm i'm not all right here's our special guest Joel, our guest today is the voice of Monday night football. He's calling Texans Steelers

the playoff game this weekend, or actually on Monday night. And next year he is going to be back in the Super Bowl booth where he belongs, damn it. He's the pride of St. Louis. He is Joe Buck. Joe, welcome back to the press box. And for purposes of this

discussion when we're doing it, I'm also the pride of Indiana. Oh, there we go. Who is you? We've got a whole section coming about that. you, don't you worry, sir. Okay. I just don't want to be the annoying. I feel like when other people do it, it's just like enough. I know, okay, you went to that school, like, shut up about it. Nobody cares. So now here I am doing the same thing. But, you know, what? Too bad. Put up with it. If you watch the Roseball, you need no excuse to wear some Indiana gear here. That was a, I did

watch a Rose Bowl. I, yeah, we do. Well, yeah, I, I, I, we are due. I don't know what the due date and that little lag time has been. It's like cicadas or something. We just pop up every 100 years. But yeah, anyway, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. I want you to do your thing. You ask me whatever the hell you want to ask me. All right, sir.

You showed up at the Seahawks Niners game this last weekend with a black eye after breaking up a fight between your twin boys. Oh, a little shot of it here. Yeah. That Shiner is still looking like a shine. Now it's turning yellow. It's gone from. black and purple to yellow and purple.

Can you give us a little play-by-play of the fight? Yeah, I can. My wife was gone. So she has a, she has plausible deniability. She has an alibi. She was in, she was in Santa Clara interviewing Brock Purdy.

It was the day of the Indiana, Alabama game. So it was New Year's Day. And the boys, we were watching the game. We were, you know, having a grand.

old time and then it came time to, hey, guys, let's go brush your teeth and let's go to bed. And that turned into a fight between the two of them. We were laying on my bed watching a show they love called Henry Danger. And then a fight broke out between Blake and Wyatt. Now, one of the two was repositioning himself to get a better crack at his brother. And as he did it, he swung his knee around and just slammed me with his knee right in the corner of this bum. that's above your eye. I don't know if it's the orbital bone, whatever it is. And I was seeing stars. I cursed at him. I said terrible things. I apologize to him. We're all good, but it was a

stunning development. I felt like I got hit by Mike Tyson. And then the next thing I knew, it was blowing up. And I was like, oh, my God, this is going to be really bad. I know the internet is very forgiving. But if I somehow show up in a week 18 game with a black eye, this could this could break the internet. So that's it. That's a story. Well, real quick, Joe, how old are your boys? There's seven and a half. Seven and a half. So between them, they're like 15. I mean, that is, that's about right. Well, let me ask you a question. Is somebody who also has a couple of young ones, one that's three, one at 16,

months old, okay? What's the best way to prevent sibling rivalry? And what do you and your wife do to minimize that? Because I need to know. You know, I wish I had a great answer. Now, I had, as Brian knows, I had girls the first time around, and they are 29 and 26 living in New York. One's married. Different story. Girls and boys, in my experience, completely different, uh, raising them when they're little. The boys, I cannot get a handle on it because neither one of them is really aggressive at all, except with each other. And it's never really, they're fighting, but it's never, it's never done mean. It's done kind of out of fun, but I mean, they hit the hell out of each other. I just have never experienced that. And I don't like seeing either of them

get hit, but they really go at it. And to answer your question, I think a little bit of that is good. I like them kind of fighting for their own turf. a little bit. But when it turns into punches that go around the head area, that's when I step in. And that's kind of what was happening last Thursday night. All right, new topic. You're getting the Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer. 1987, your dad got that same award.

And if my calculations are correct, you had just graduated from high school when that happened. I did. What did you remember about that day? well um i remember being there was hot as hell um i was in a seersucker blazer my ray bands on my gigantic head my hair the original set of my hair placed where it should have been uh with a nice full you know normal 18 year olds head of hair and uh i i just remember the kind of caravan that we took there my dad had really good friends jerry clinton came dan deirdre d'ard came. My brothers and sisters all came. It became a big family thing. A lot of friends. As you know,

Cooperstown is not that easy to get to, which is what makes it so special, I think. So we got there by planes, trains, and automobiles. And I had never at that point, or really after that point, seen my dad that proud of his career. He always downplayed everything. He was kind of an egoless guy. and I'm not saying he was puffing his chest out and doing the look at me, but I could just tell that there was a feeling of accomplishment that I had never seen on him before. He was known when I was a kid and when he was obviously, you know, an adult and going to parties and stuff, he would tell the preamble to the song Danny Boy. It's about an old Irish man who's sending his last son to war, his other sons have been killed.

and that's what the story is and the song is about. And he would do the preamble with the little bit of the Irish accent and what have it. Everybody wanted to hear it. And that night, after he got in, he was so drunk that he decided that not only was he going to tell the story, he was now for the first time in public going to try and sing the song. And it was so bad. And I was just shrinking. It was down in this basement bar, I think, at the Otisaga Hotel.

and he didn't care. And it was like the first time I saw my dad just not care and be completely wild and free because of that honor. So that left an imprint on me. And to get this now and to have my mom still here and be around to go with us next summer, God willing for all of us, I think is what makes it the most special for me is that I can kind of have that. I went there as a little kid kind of, and now I'm going there as I'll be 57 at that point with my mom, I think is really cool. I got the list here of the announcers

who have been honored by both the baseball and football halls of fame, Al Michaels, Dick Enberg, Kurt Gowdy, Lindsay Nelson, and the Buck Boys. So there you go. Not a bad list. It's a great list. it kind of feels like Sesame Street, like one of these things just doesn't belong. I don't feel that I do. It's why I have a therapist. It's why I have imposter syndrome. It's why I have everything. I had every opportunity as a kid.

I am proud of the fact that I paid attention as a little boy. And I only wanted to be my dad. That's all I had. Yeah, I wanted to be a baseball pitcher. No, I wasn't good enough. but I didn't want to be a fireman, a policeman, a lawyer, a doctor, whatever kids want to be. I wanted to be Jack Buck. And so because of that, thank God he wanted me with him.

He and I were more buddies than we were father-son. And he took me everywhere, as I've told you before, I was in every National League city. By the time I was 12, I was on Cardinal Road trips, you know, all summer, bat-boying, just being immersed in it. And then every night sitting in the booth one seat over or two seats over really with one can headphone watching the game with my own eyes, listening to my dad and Mike Shannon in the earphone, and then watching my dad do what he did with my eyes again. And just kind of piecing all that together, it just became a part of my DNA.

And I think that's what allowed me to start at such a young age and take advantage of all the opportunities that I was given. You know, Joe, you've, and one thing that I found to be really, like, endearing is that you've been really open about how that earlier criticism about nepotism affected you, right? That you talked about how it hurt you, that you'd even cried about it on occasion. Two questions. One, did it ever chip away at your confidence? And two, what did your dad say to you about how to handle it?

Yeah, you know, I don't think I've ever been asked either one of those two questions, oddly enough, because I have talked about it a lot. I think it, a lot of times criticism chips away of my confidence to this day until the game starts. And then I don't think about it. Now, I've talked about in the past, I've had Twitter or X open before years ago when I was doing a Phillies game and I was reading. some of it and it started to affect me while I was in the moment and I was like, this is not a good idea. I started almost answering to that criticism in real time with the way I was doing it or the tone I was doing it or, you know, whatever. It was like, just turn this off, take it off your phone, stop. But back then even, I think it could have, I'm glad. I'm also proud of the fact that when the game started, I didn't think about any of that stuff. I just went and did the job. I did and nobody else's voice or criticism and letters to the editor or anything else in the St. Louis Post Dispatch was not ringing in my ears or bouncing around my head.

I put that away. My dad and I never really talked about it, but I did see him live it. He did two years with Tim McCarver on CBS. He had a two-year deal and a two-year option. And I think a lot of people, nobody remembers this. But he was supposed to do the number two game when CBS got Major League Baseball. rights. And Brent Musburger was supposed to do the main game with Tim McCarver. Brent Musburger got fired. I think it was after the NCAA tournament that year, which would have been in 89, I think.

1990, I believe. 90. Okay. So in 90. Yeah, my dad did 90 and 91. So that was in 90. And I had done one year of minor league baseball, but I was really in it. And I was kind of living it with him. And they're like, okay, your dad's going to do the number two game with Jim Cott, who he was really close with and really good friends with. And I honestly believe it would have been a much better experience for my dad, had Brent stayed on and done the main game with Tim. And that never had, you know, my dad got elevated because of that. And my dad was more of a radio guy. And I think the sensibilities of what TV called for at that time, he and I talked about it all the time. It just wasn't a fit at that time in his life. And Tim was kind of the big star. And my dad wasn't used to kind of, you know, getting out of the

way of the big star. But this is a long-winded, hopefully interesting answer to your question because I saw him deal with criticism. I saw him make a comment about Bobby Vinton singing the national anthem in Pittsburgh. And my mom telling me, my God, we came back to our hotel room that night. And there was a footprint smashed into their pillow in their hotel in Pittsburgh. And, you know, I don't know, it was Ted Shaker, I think, was at CBS and passed my dad in the hallway down by the lock of clubhouses and said, you know, you're in a lot of trouble,

Jack, and just kept walking. And it was like, man, this is, this is no joke here. And so I saw him kind of persevere through that. I saw it bother him. And I also saw him when it came time to call the first pitch to shut all that out and just go do his job. So it was never really a conversation. It was more me watching him kind of deal with it, where I learned. Last question about Jack Buck. When you were here on the press box last time, I asked when you thought about your dad these days. And you told me sometimes you have dreams about calling a game with him. You two were in the booth, call it a game. When do you find yourself thinking about him these days? That hasn't changed. I have dreams about my dad all the time. I never cried about my dad dying. And he was, he was the closest person to me in my life. I was there every day. And that doesn't make me better or worse than my brothers. sisters, they were there all the time too, and my mom was there every day. But he and I had some special times in the hospital together. But when he finally passed away, it was almost, I never

understood when people said, you know, it was almost a relief. It was a relief for him. I mean, he begged me to kind of take my hands off the handlebars or the steering wheel and let him die. So it almost felt like it was natural and it was time. And so I never really, I don't know that I ever dealt with that because I was emceeing my dad. funeral at Bush Stadium, you know, two days later and then spoke at his funeral. And it just became almost like a job to me. So I think my way of mourning it or keeping him alive in my mind is in my dreams. I see him all the time in my dreams. When do I think about him? I don't really have to go think about him because I live in St. Louis, which is a small town. I have a story a day from

somebody that was somehow touched by my dad's career or a personal interaction or whatever, that they keep him alive for me that way. But I would say that that's the same answer now that I still just think about him at night when I'm knocked out. When you, almost every Monday night, Joe, I get on Twitter, unlike you. I do sample it from time to time. I would too if I were you. Yeah.

I see somebody compliment Troy. And they're going to say, man, Troy's great. And they almost always phrase it like this. Troy is great because he no longer gives a fuck. He doesn't care what people think. Oh, we can say fuck on this thing? We can say fuck on this. Oh, man.

Okay. He's honest. You know, he says it, whether it's about the refs, whether it's about the quarterbacks. You've been working with Troy since 2002. How do you think Troy has changed as an announcer over that period? You know, I think everybody evolves and cares a little less on the, I wonder what they're going to think, meter. It doesn't mean that he cares. less about doing his job. I think he cares as much as he ever has. I think he prepares the same way

in 2026 now that he did in 2007. I honestly do. He is over-prepared, I would say, if anything. I mean, you've seen his boards, I assume, I mean, it's just, it almost looks like calligraphy and the notes and the depth of his knowledge is great. But I do think, you know, early in our career together, he made a comment one time in either preseason game. I can't remember a regular season game. I think it was preseason. He made a comment about Donovan McNabb and being inaccurate. And the reporters after the game came down and said to Donovan, hey, well, tonight in the broadcast, or today in the broadcast, Troy Aikman said you were an inaccurate quarterback. And then he had to kind of answer, talking about Troy had to kind of answer to that criticism and then it becomes, is it worth it?

Do I want to answer for this? Do I want to really tell people how I really feel so that I got to answer for this for the next couple of weeks? It's kind of a pain in the ass and nobody likes being the center of that stuff. So I think we all kind of recoil in that stuff. And I think his time has gone on, I think he's been more and more willing to just kind of just say how he feels, whether it's about officiating or it's about a quarterback or whatever. I told him back then. I said, it's different if I say it because I didn't play the game. I mean, I did in high school, but I didn't go to the Super Bowl and I didn't win three of them and I'm not in Canton. And you've earned that. And you've done your homework and you've looked at film and you've done

all that needs to be done to have a really smart opinion on what we're watching. And if that's how you feel, well, who is more qualified to make that comment than you? And my answer then and my answer now is nobody. So I think he's allowed for more of that as time has gone on. And I'm proud of him for that because I celebrate that. And I know when he gets frustrated, I can see it on him. If a call happens, like, come on, that doesn't, you know, that's roughing the passer or, you know, whatever it might be. And it's okay to disagree with Russell Yerke or Mike Pereira or Dean Blandino and get into those. I don't want to say arguments, but, you know, differences of opinion. And I think that makes it interesting. I think that's way better than everybody who's just nodding

their head and going, okay, well, that must be right. Second and four. Well, you know, Troy Aikman obviously grew up to be a quarterback, right? Like, that's what his training was. He wanted to do that. He didn't grow up in the business or around the business like you did. But I'm wondering if you learned anything from him about how to operate behind the mic having a chance to work alongside him for so long. Yeah, I think I have learned from him. I don't know that I've ever thought about it that way. I would say what he does better than anybody I've ever worked with. Our on cameras at the beginning of the games, he's as good.

He's maybe better than I am at it. You know, every time we do a rehearsal, he's like, I could never do that, which you just did. I'm like, well, I don't know that I could do what you do. And many times we do a rehearsal, and I set him up one way on, you know, hey, the Steelers have lost their last six games in the playoffs, Troy, and this is one that this is why you sign Aaron Rogers to try to. And then the next time when we do it for real, I'll mess that up or forget it. And he's so good at actually listening to me and kind of changing the beginning of what he's saying

and then getting to his point. I've learned a lot of football from him, I do believe. I know what makes him excited about watching a certain player. I know that if we're doing a game and Joe Burroughs in it, he's all in on the quarterback. I've never seen in 24 years now, he's never been a bigger fan of any player that we've covered than Joe Burrow. And it's just kind of fun for me to sit back and watch him talk about

quarterback play when we've got Joe Burrow in a game. I would say I've learned more football from him. I think he would tell you he's learned broadcasting from me. And we do really listen to each other. And I think that's what makes it work. Let's talk about the college years. You were at Indiana from 87 to 91. I heard you say you on a podcast that you were in the Sigma New fraternity.

What was the life of Joe Buck the Fratboy like? You know, I can honestly say even, I'm on this big text chain now with the guys that I was in my fraternity house with. And they're reference because of IU football the last two years. And I went to the Michigan game last year and we all kind of got together. It was great to see everybody. But they're referencing things that I'm like, did I go here? Did I go to Indiana?

I don't remember any of this stuff. Like I wouldn't say that I was, now, was I in a frat? Did I go through Hell Week? And did I take whatever dumb pledge they give you or whatever? Yeah. Was I a quote, unquote frat boy? Not really because I was at the beginning and end of every year, I was going and broadcasting AAA baseball by the time I was in there. And I was really kind of one foot in, one foot out.

And even that way with Indiana football and basketball, like I was a season ticket holder back then because they gave students discounts and you could buy a season ticket package. And it was fun to go to those games. But I left there. The team wasn't very good. And I kind of lost track of what was going on. Yeah, did I look at their scores? Yeah, was I heartbroken that they lost week after week, year after year? Yeah, it bothered me to some degree, but it really wasn't a thing. And now all of a sudden, all of us have come out of the woodwork watching this thing. But as far as the frat boy stuff, I went to a couple of parties, but not, I was not like the guy rolling the kegs of beer in from the liquor store trying to hide him from the police.

That really wasn't my job around the house. I understand you went to prep school and you're in Missouri. So why didn't you go to Missouri, you know, the state's flagship school, legendary general, or Ohio State, which is where your father went. You know you were really close to your father. So like, why are you? Because I got in is kind of the answer. I didn't apply to Missouri.

I had brothers and sisters that went there. I wanted to get further away and feel like I was out of state. I had contact with the Duke baseball coach. That was my number one. And I think I had a spot on the baseball team if I had gotten in, but there was going to be no scholarship situation. And I was a decent high school pitcher, not great by any stretch. But I couldn't get in.

And then I got into Boston University, which I've visited with my good friend and a buddy I went to high school with. And I kind of fell in love with the city of Boston. But my dad was like, I can't, I'm not paying that. You're not going there. So it was kind of a happy medium of all things. It wasn't B.U. It wasn't Missouri. It was away, but it wasn't ungodly expensive for my dad. And it had a good journalism school, but I didn't even take journalism classes. I was an English major. I was a Spanish minor. And I never graduated. So it's almost like I was never there, even though I was there for parts of four years. It's kind of a weird, foggy time in my life as I look back. I loved every minute I was there.

I was homesick at the beginning. And then I couldn't get enough of it. My daughter went there. She did graduate from there. So we've kept that part of it in the family. And I'm proud that I went there. I'm so glad I didn't go anywhere else. I know you interviewed Bobby Knight later. Did you have any interactions with him at IU? No, it's funny you say that. My dad, when I was leaving for Indiana, I was like, hey, go see Bobby. I've had him in to St. Louis for a couple of banquets.

Go say hi. Tell him you're my kid. And I was like, yeah, okay, dad. Yeah, sure. And I was like, that's never going to happen. So then years later, I'm sitting behind the mic at Bush Stadium and St. Louis, and Bobby Knight comes into the booth. And let's just say he was having a good time that night. And my dad says, Joe, sit down and do whatever was, the sixth inning, and we'll

put Bobby on with you. And I'm like, okay, so I sit down. I'm like, hey, we're going to the sixth inning. Cardinals leading the Pirates four to two. And at the other microphone is Bobby Knight. And Bobby, he goes, just a hold on a minute. This is on the air. Hold on a minute. your dad in the back of the booth just told me when you went to India did you go to Indiana I was like yeah yes sir I went to Indiana your dad just told me in the back of the booth that he said you go in and see Bobby night in his office and tell him that you're my son and did you and I said no and he's like well why the hell not and I said because I was scared of you then and I'm even more scared of you right now and I look back and my dad's cackling

back there and somehow I got through the sixth inning, asked him probably three questions that were stupid and I lived to tell the story. But no, I did not darken his door when I was a Sigma New at IU. I have a real quick question for you. I want you to rank these for IU sports legends, okay? All right. All right. So Fernando Mendoza, Calbert Cheney, Steve Alford, Anthony Thompson, one through four for you, your top in order. I would say, well, Fernando Mendoza, I mean, come on, win the Heisman. As much as I love Calvert Cheney, Steve Alford, who, you know, was and became a friend when he got out and was a coach and, I mean, a jump shot for days and just was a joy to watch when he was at IU. And Anthony Thompson is kind of like,

my guy, Anthony Thompson and Trent Green were the quarterback running back combination for Bill Mallory when I was there and we were actually pretty darn good in the late 80s at IU. But I would say oddly, and I would flip Alford and Calbert Cheney and probably that's my order. I would go Fernando Mendoza, Steve Alford, Calbert Cheney, who I loved watching play. and Anthony Thompson just because of the nostalgia of it. But I would go, I mean, it's hoops at Indiana until the last couple of years. So how could I not put them right behind Mendoza? We've got two questions for you, Joe, from the category of announcer talks about other announcers.

Sean McDonough just won a sportscaster of the year award. He was so good during Ole Miss, Georgia the other night. What makes a Sean McDonough call unique? there's so much emotion in it from what I hear. I mean, I think it's the most subjective question you could ask anybody. But as far as an announcer talking about another announcer, I love listening to his games. Whether it's NHL, college football, a Red Sox game, whatever it is. There is a crispness.

There is a willingness to, quote unquote, go there. with him where he'll say some stuff. And I'm like, damn, did he just say that? I would never say that. And then there's an emotional part of it. I love it when his voice cracks. I love it because he's so in, you know, like he's in it.

And of all the guys out there that I get a chance to listen to, I'm not going to, he would be number one. Now that's excluding some other people that I'm very close with. And I would, you know, die. if they knew that I didn't pick them number one. So I'll say one or one A is Sean McDonough.

And I'll leave the other one open to those individuals' interpretation. Anyone who might be offended, trust me, you're 1A. Just, uh, yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right, that's number one. Number two, and then Joel's going to hit you with a lightning round here. You worked with John Madden at Fox, your colleagues, let's say. Yes.

How do we feel about Nick Cage playing John Madden in a movie? Hmm. Well, I've seen. seen the clips. I think it's going to be one of those things where hopefully when I go see the movie, I start buying in more than Nicholas Cage is John Madden. That's where I'll leave that. I think Christian Bale, I would watch that guy do anything.

He played Dick Cheney. He can play John Madden. Yeah. I mean, he's Al Davis, isn't he? So I'm in. I'm in on Christian Bale. Just from the snippets I've seen, I'm just hoping that as we sit here in January,

whenever that comes out, I'm assuming next fall. Yeah, November. That fall or winter, that I will buy in more as I am immersed in the experience of the movie at him portraying John Madden. Is that fair?

It's fair. That's where I feel. I'm like, I'm watching, I'm like, I really want this to be good. I love John Madden like you did and like all of America did. Yeah. But I just hope this works out because the trailer was a little jarring. Well, I mean, there's a movie out called Soul on Fire where William H. Macy plays my dad. And what I think William H. Macy does really well is he didn't try.

And I talked to him a lot for a long time about my dad's cadence. And I think initially William H. Macy, this is an interesting topic for another day. But I think initially he was going to try to imitate my dad, like a direct imitation of, well, here we go into the fifth inning and, you know, the way he talked. And I think by the time he and I hung up the phone, I think he kind of switched. And it was like, I'm going to do a tribute kind of jack buck thing. But I'm not going to try to sound exactly like him. I don't know that he could.

Frank Caliendo could probably do it. But then it becomes with John Madden because everybody knows Madden's, boom, pop, bow, blah, blah, and the way that he broadcast. Then it's like, I'm anxious to see. And I think I've seen it in one of the clips where he does do one of those things, you know, with one of the guttural reactions that Madden has. But I wish luck trying to be him and be that big and be that. There's only one.

And so are you going to try to do an exact imitation? Is this Timothy Chalemay as Dylan or Jeremy Allen White is Bruce Springsteen? Or are we just doing kind of a close John Madden? I'm anxious to see. Is this lightning around time? Oh, man. I don't know. I can do it.

All right. Well, look, it's going to be, I'm not going to lie. It's going to be tough. But I think it'll be fair. I think you'll enjoy it. All right. So we're going to get started with this one, because I wanted to ask you it earlier. Why are you still on Twitter?

Well, because I like the game of it sometimes, and I like to fight back. But I do not let it affect my life. And I feel like it's affecting my life at like a point zero zero zero two right now. When you played high school sports, did your opponents know who you were? And if they did, what did they say to you? well they knew who I was one time when my dad showed up and I was pitching and he pulled his Lincoln out behind our dugout, makeshift dugout at Country Day High School. All eyes went on him.

And then I went back to give him a hug because I hadn't seen him in two weeks. I was like, hey, dad, I can't believe he came for this game. My arm's killing me. He's like, just throw fastballs and changeups. Don't throw any curveballs. Okay, dad. And then I got on the mound. And the first pitch to this little kid for Brentwood High School,

it was standing there, the helmet was too big for him. I drilled the kid right in the head. Every parent in the stands, which was about 20, turned to my dad like, did you just tell him to hit the first kid in the head? I didn't do that. I didn't tell him that. So, yeah, it's a small town. Everybody knew that that was Jack Buck's kid out there trying to pitch.

That's right. You played video games, right? Yeah. Okay. When you played MLB and NFL games, what teams did you play with? I do. Well, I play them now because I've got these seven and a half year old twins. I'm on Madden now. I have real time, real references, and we just go around and around with different teams. A lot of the time I make my son Blake play me in the game I'm about to do. So before I go to Pittsburgh this week, I am going to make him play me. I don't care if I'm Houston.

or if I'm Pittsburgh, but it's so damn good that it helps me with names and numbers. It's actually, A, I'm getting time in with my son, and B, I know that 15 is Ben Scoronic. So it's kind of nice. You never took a video game break? Like, you've been playing video games this whole time? No, no, no. I am not a video game guy. So, I mean, when you say what teams were you, I was like in television baseball.

Oh. Like there were no teams. It was like, you're out. There was no, there was no picking your team. You and I are the only people in the world who had in their television, I think, still. Oh, my God. I lived for in television baseball. I could not get enough. A great system. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. What still makes St. Louis an important American city? You know, I would say the best thing my city has going for it is the support it gives to anything that rolls through town. It's like the circus is coming and everybody's going to come. The PGA championship is coming and Bell Reeves got record setting crowds. And, you know, the XFL or the UFL is here and battlehawks are going to get 30,000 and everybody else gets 2,000.

And I think it's a very supportive city. I think the Cardinals are still a big piece of it and kind of good old-fashioned Midwest Americana, nice people that I think treat visitors really well, even when they're Red Sox fans and they're sweeping your team in the 2004 World Series. I think people are very nice here. We have the arch. It's still a great landmark or monument, whatever you want to call it, in the United. this country and I'm proud of it. It's a great city. We need to merge, in my opinion, the city and the county, but we'll save that for a St. Louis-based podcast, and then I'll really get myself in trouble. How and when did you make up with Randy Moss? That's a great question. I made up with him

verbally when he came to Fox for a brief moment. He was at Fox, and I was like, well, this is odd. I got to throw it to him in the studio. I better talk to him. He didn't care when I said that's disgusting. He didn't care when I apologized about saying that's disgusting. And he doesn't care now. That's kind of the beauty of Randy Moss. And then my wife went to ESPN and was doing Monday night countdown. Randy was there of all the people on the set, on it, behind it, whatever. He was the nicest person to Michelle. And when I would go visit her on the set, he'd pop up and come down, give me a big hug. It was almost like, it just was never a thing. So, you know, I still get that stuff on Twitter all the time. If I want to dig around for it or, you know, somebody will go,

that's disgusting, just like the Randy Moss touchdown. And it's like, if you only knew how little Randy Moss cared then now and ever. You may not say it, but it's part of my history. And I got to live with the good, the bad, the ugly, the great, the whatever. That's kind of the fun of what I do. I'm going to make this the last one. You talked about going on the road with your father when he was doing the job. So favorite NL road trip.

What was the one? God, that's so easy. The West Coast trip. Anytime we went to Now, when I got older, it was Montreal for other reasons. But when I was a kid, and we'd go up and down the West Coast,

and we'd be in San Francisco, San Diego, and L.A. And I went to the racetrack with my dad. Danny Shannon, Mike Shannon's son and I, we'd go to the beach, we'd get sand off of us and put like some weird, nice outfit on to go to the track, Hollywood Park. I sat there one time with Walter Mathau and my dad

while they were looking at racing forms and betting my inheritance on the fifth horse in the fourth race. Then we'd scramble to Dodger Stadium. And then while the team charter went back to St. Louis, my dad and I, and I was 10, would get on a commercial flight, go to Vegas. We'd land.

He'd give me 20 bucks. I'd go play Donkey Kong for the 20. dollars worth of time, let myself in the room, get room service. He'd roll craps all night, show up at six in the morning, and he'd either have a huge wad of cash in his hand, or he'd have nothing, and he'd say, well, we work for free this week, Buck, don't tell your mother. And then we'd take a flight home. And then we'd stand on the curb at Lambert Airport. And the funniest line my dad ever said is, we're waiting on my mom to pick both of us up. I don't know how the hell we can fly here from Las Vegas and land on time.

And your mom can't make it out here from Ladoo to pick us up on time. And I'm like, it was like cannonball run. Like, yeah, it was sheriff, whatever his name was and his son. Like, remind me when we go home to, yeah, I'm not even to say it. All right, Joe Buck, he's calling Steelers Texans on Monday. next time he'll be on. We'll talk about his adventures in Montreal since we didn't get much from the Frat Boy days.

Joe, it's always... That's a hell of a city. There we go. I'm just going to leave it at that. Joe, it's always so much fun. Thanks for coming on the prospects. All right, guys. Thanks.

Thanks so much. Well, that was fun, huh? Man, you know, this is the second time literally today that somebody's like, you got to go to Canada, man. You know, you gotta go to Canada. What is? Montreal and Toronto.

What is going on up there? It is. And I've not spent nearly enough time. Just doing the whole Canadian seat. Have you done Toronto before? I've never been to Toronto. No. Really?

No. Oh, man. A lot of fun. A lot of fun. Wait, we're going to have to do your Canadian adventures too. You know, I went when I was partnered. So I don't know what kind of fun that Joe was having, but I assume I'm making some assumptions about what made Montreal so fun.

Just to follow up on the Jack Buck Bobby Vinton story he told there. So Jack's in the number one job at CBS. Bobby Vinton is singing the national anthem in Pittsburgh. And he butchered the anthem or got some of the words wrong. And so Jack comes on the air and I can't do a jack buck too well, but I'll try. And he says this, well, when you're Polish and you live in Pittsburgh, you can do anything you want with the words, which is objectively funny. But I guess counted as controversial back then. And that's what that was.

There was a real time in America when there were a lot of Polish. This joke's going around. And people are ready to take offense, apparently. Yeah, man. That's crazy. He is Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. But I'm like you magic by Bruce Baldwin.

Let's do some commerce, Joel. We don't do nearly enough commerce on this year, Pressbox podcast. Sure. Please follow us on Instagram at Pressbox Ringer, where we're putting up all kinds of stuff. I put up a bunch of Truman Capote magazines the other day, clips from the show, stuff from our personal archives, Yola Boko Flood Gifts. We got everything. That is a place to find us.

Also follow us on Twitter at Pressbox, on Twitter at Pressbox on Blue Sky as well. And hey, we never asked. So people can retweet or re-skeat the pod. Can we ask that for once? Oh, please. I mean, can't, look, I have to admit something. Okay. I can't watch out videos.

Like, I'm just a little, I'm a little, you know how it is. I'm tweeting them out and I can't watch them. That's what I am. Yeah. But I would love YouTube to do it. Yes, we want you to want, can they subscribe on YouTube as well? That's coming. We're coming.

That's coming. YouTube is coming in 2026. I'm glad you mentioned that. We got a lot of big stuff this month, too. We're not going to ruin it. We got some big guests coming up in. We really do. We really do.

I'm excited, man. I'm excited to. We'll see you next Thursday. I have to keep my day straight here with more lukewarm takes about the media. Can't wait, y'all. Looking forward to now.