Joe Buck: You Should Definitely Watch Jon Hamm’s ‘ESPN Jeopardy!’ Episode

Joe Buck got the Ford Frick Award in Cooperstown over the weekend, walked out on that stage in front of thousands of baseball people, and had exactly one thought running through his head.

"That is a look of a man who just said, oh my god, I can't believe they didn't boo me," Buck told Rich, looking at a photo of himself from the ceremony.

He is in two halls of fame now, the Rozelle already in his back pocket on the football side. Rich congratulated him on the double. Buck's response was perfectly Buck: "Well, that's what it's all about. Personal accolades."

Then he took the air out of his own tires anyway. "I'm no longer the 27-year-old doing the World Series. I'm the old man now. I've got a gray beard. I've got dyed hair. I've got hair transplanted to the top of my head. But I'm in two halls of fame. So, hey."

The weekend itself got to him. Buck was in that same crowd in 1987 when his father got the award, sitting with his mom and his sister. Thirty-nine years later his mom and sister were back in the crowd, this time with his kids, his son-in-law and Michelle. Somebody along the parade route yelled that he was supposed to be throwing candy, so Buck threw his tie into the street instead. He had bought that tie off Instagram. Within an hour the algorithm served it right back to him, and he bought it again.

"Cooperstown is just an amazing place," he said. "It feels stuck in time in the best possible way."

The new gig is ESPN Jeopardy!, and Buck is not treating the exclamation point as decorative. "Not to me. I shouted from the mountaintops," he said. Ten episodes, all sports, same writers who wrote for Alex Trebek, same convoluted clues designed to trip you up. Buck says he stumped internally to mix celebrities in with the SportsCenter and NFL Network contestants, which is how Jon Hamm, Keegan-Michael Key and Adam Pally ended up on the board.

Hamm, he promised, is worth your time. "Jon Hamm represented himself extremely well. Like extremely well." Buck has known him since middle school, back when Hamm was the guy everybody wanted on their Trivial Pursuit team. "His recollection and his retention, he is a genius."

The football calendar restarts August 20th with a preseason game in Houston. After that, a Monday night schedule Buck is genuinely fired up about: Mahomes in the opener, already hopping around in 11-on-11 drills with a knee brace on, two Rams games inside the first five weeks, week three in Chicago, and Dallas at Philadelphia in week five, a game Buck had every year at Fox and has never had on Monday night until now.

He is also on board with the show's newest bit. Rich has launched a segment called "is he back yet," dedicated to number 99. Buck did not need much convincing.

"If he wasn't coming back, it's a lot of noise, a lot of photo ops, pads," Buck said. Pair that with Myles Garrett and a revamped secondary under Chris Shula and he thinks the Rams "are going to be phenomenal."

Then there is Indiana, where Buck was a season ticket holder for almost four years before the Cardinals job pulled him away. He met Curt Cignetti on the field before the Michigan game two seasons ago, and Cignetti walked him through exactly how the game would go. It went that way.

"I've never seen a man stand on a sideline the way he does," Buck said. "I love him and thank God he's at IU."

All of it delivered from a rented house in Denver on moving day, boxes stacking up in the next room, with Harry Truman's "The buck stops here" plaque already on the desk. First thing he unpacked. It has been there since fifth grade.