Joe Buck was close with Mark McGwire. Really close.

The play-by-play voice of the St. Louis Cardinals for 17 years, who still has a standing invitation to return to their broadcast booth, has called some of the greatest moments in modern sports history. Including McGwire’s record-breaking 62nd home run in 1998 for Fox, which had moved its Tuesday primetime programming to accommodate the possibility that the Cardinals’ first baseman might hit a record-setting home run.

But they did. And he did.

McGwire knew he would, too.

“And the cool thing was that before that game, I sat down with him and [Sammy] Sosa,” Buck said on The Justin Time Podcast with Justin Kutcher. “And did an interview with them around 4 o’clock. [I was] nervous out of my mind to sit there with them, with that kind of tension that was in the air, because Sosa was right on his heels, anyway. And so we’re talking about that. And then we get done with the interview, and I’m gonna go up and call the game, and he’s going to get ready. It was nice of him to do it. And as we’re all getting up, he leaned into me. He’s like, ‘You better be ready, man. I’m hitting it tonight.’ I was like, ‘Damn, okay.’”

Mark McGwire called his historic night! 😱@Buck gives an inside perspective on calling a historic night in sports.

The full episode with Joe Buck drops tomorrow! #JoeBuck #MarkMcGwire #MLB pic.twitter.com/eFP2gNlfVg

— TheJustInTime_Podcast (@TheJustInTime_P) July 2, 2025

Hearing McGwire’s certainty, Buck felt the weight of what was about to happen. He knew there was no room for a single detail to be missed.

“So I go up there and he rockets that ball about one inch fair and about two inches over the wall down into the left field corner,” Buck explained. “And the beauty of it for me was I was one booth over, so I had an even better look at it — more down the line — than Mike [Shannon] did. He was calling it more directly behind home plate. It’s hard to see in that corner. And you’re kind of going off the crowd reaction more than anything. I could see the ball, though, and I was zeroed in like never before because you cannot make a mistake and call that his 62nd home run, and it’s not. I mean, you’d be laughed out of the business.”

And it’s probably for the best that Buck was dialed in. He had written the scripted notes about what the home run meant in his scorebook beforehand. He said that script was corny, sure, but not over the top. He didn’t actually read from it during the call, as his eyes stayed on the ball to make sure it cleared the fence.

Because of that, he caught McGwire leap over first base and miss the bag, caught up watching the ball.

“Touch first, Mark, you’re the new single-season home run king,” Buck said 27 years ago.

That was the one and only time Buck ever wrote scripted notes in his scorebook beforehand for a call.

“It was a good lesson to learn that you’re going to find the right words in the moment, even in the biggest moments, because it’s what you do,” Buck continued. “And not worrying about that, and just being honest to the moment, like you would any other time.”