It was ten years ago this week that beloved broadcaster, Jack Buck and Cardinals pitcher, Darryl Kile died. In fact, it was ten years ago today that Kile died. Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post Dispatch called it, "The worst week in St. Louis sports history."
I cannot say that I knew Jack or Kile. I had met Jack on a few occasions and had an encounter with Kile at spring training the year he died. Of course, like most Cardinals fans I felt like I knew Jack better than I did. I had spent many years listening to him and Harry Carey broadcast the Cardinals games on the radio. It was only after Carey was fired that I got to truly appreciate the talent that was Jack Buck.
I wanted to be Jack Buck...or be as good as he was. He had the job I dreamed of having some day. Just as many young ball players may dream of playing along side their favorite player, I dreamed of working in the same booth with Jack...calling Cardinals games. He made it look and sound so easy.
I do know Jack's son Joe. We crossed paths and got to know one another while we were both broadcasting Triple-A baseball. Joe with the Louisville Redbirds and me with the Pawtucket Red Sox. I remember that among my peers in the league we all HOPED that we would get that call to the majors; but everyone KNEW that Joe would.
By the year 2002, the year of Jack Buck and Darryl Kile's deaths, I was out of professional baseball broadcasting. Joe, indeed, had made it to the Big Leagues and was , in fact, trying to cut back his local work because of his commitment to Fox Sports.
Jack was in and out of the hospital in late 2001 and as the new year began found himself back in the hospital only to never leave. As the 2002 baseball season began to unfold Joe was in the booth filling in for his dad. It was during spring training of 2002 that Jack Buck and Darryl Kile were welded together in my mind; months before their deaths.
It was my third time to go to spring training. I had made two previous trip when I was broadcasting for Pawtucket, but this was my first as a "fan". My family and I had made the trip to Jupiter and had tickets for a pair of Cardinals exhibition games. On Tuesday, I sat in the stands with my family and watched the game and afterwards approached the window of the broadcast booth to say hello to Joe, who was working the game with Mike Shannon.
We spoke for awhile and then he ask if I was going to be coming back again. When I told him we would be back on Thursday he invited me to come up and sit in the booth during the game. I took him up on his offer, abandoning my family in the stands. During that time I caught the baseball broadcasting bug again (not that I had really ever lost it).
My conversation with Joe was primarily limited to just before the start of the broadcast and during commercial breaks between innings. But the things that is burned into my memory is Joe's cellphone. He was constantly getting updates about his dad. I remember one inning where Joe was doing the play-by-play when he got a call and turned the broadcast over to Shannon. I knew that Jack was not doing well and in fact was doing much worse than the public had been led to believe.
Earlier that same day, on one of the back fields used by the Cardinals for spring training workouts,my family and I hurried to catch the last moments of the pitchers drills. We got there just as things were wrapping up and players were heading to the clubhouse to get ready for the game. That is when we encountered Darryl Kile.
We were quite fond of Kile, as a Cardinals pitcher, but also because he looked like he could have been related to my wife's family. We approached the rope that separated the fans from the field and Kile came over to sign autographs. As he signed for my son I noticed that he signed using his left hand. I thought that interesting since he was an All-Star right handed throwing pitcher.
Old broadcasters don't die they just lose there voices and I had to ask him about what I had observed. Kile told me that he actually was LEFT handed. He did everything left handed EXCEPT pitch! He said he ate, wrote, even bowled left handed. The only reason he threw right handed is because growing up he only had access to baseball gloves for right handed throwers. So he taught himself to throw with his right arm. I thought the story quite interesting and one I had never heard told on any broadcast. I knew that if I were broadcasting a Darryl Kile game I would be sure to use that story.
So on that day I had lasting memories of both Jack Buck and Darryl Kile. Jack's through the worry and concern of his son, Joe; and through my personal interaction with Darryl Kile and the time he took to talk with us that day.
When Jack passed away I remember feeling like I had lost a member of the family. I was deeply saddened because I had admired him for so many years and because he was kind to me on those times I did meet him. But the death of Kile stunned and shocked me. He was so young and was a professional athlete...how could that be?
I learned of Kile's death while in the ER with my daughter. We had gone of a canoe trip with her church youth group that day. While trying to negotiate some white water the canoe tipped to one side and she put her hand down on the rocks to keep us from turning over. In doing so, she ripped off her fingernail.
While in the ER, the Game of the Week came on the TV in the room we were in. It was a clear and bright day in Chicago but for some reason the game was being delayed. After several minutes, Cubs catcher Joe Girardi came out and made the announcement to those in Wrigley Field and a national television audience that there had been a tragedy in the Cardinal family and the game would not be played. We would later learn from, of all people, Joe Buck that Kile had been found dead in his hotel room.
It is strange how people enter your life or cross your path, even in the briefest of moments. It makes you think and wonder about how certain things happen in the time and with the timing they do. In that moment, I was connect again with Darryl Kile, Jack and Joe Buck.
I am not sure what the "take away" is from this but I do believe that somehow we are all linked together. We do not live in a vacuum. Perhaps the "take away" is that we are placed in other peoples lives; sometimes for a brief encounter...sometimes for longer periods of time. Regardless the duration, we have the ability to be a blessing or a burden...to be blessed or to be burdened by an experience.
Take a moment to think how God may place you in someone's path today...no matter how briefly. Will you be a blessing or will you be someone's burden? You may never know what memory they will take away from having met you!
R.I.P. DK57 JFB
Thanks for reading!
Jeff
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