Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Joe Buck and his wife, photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

A couple of weeks ago, Joe Buck was on Richard Deitsch’s SI Media Podcast to talk about his career, his father, social media, and his preparation for covering major sporting events, which now include golf. When the conversation steered toward Twitter and how Buck hasn’t tweeted in a over year, everyone’s favorite announcer said that he quit using the service because of the haters, and explained that having Twitter open during a Phillies-Red Sox game was just about the worst idea:

“I found that I was spending an inordinate amount of time either engaging the people that were giving me crap or kinda sparring with someone who was being funny back or you know retweeting or engaging somebody that was being positive. It was really everything. I think Twitter kinda breeds a lot of the negativity and I know when you’ve written articles about me there’s kinda an apology to the Twitter haters that you start with that always catches my attention” …

“When you’ve done enough games I’ve done. When you’ve done Phillies in the World Series both winning and losing, and when they’re losing it sounds like everything you say is a complete slam on the city of Philadelphia’s Ben Franklin himself. Or San Francisco the same way, and they’re always playing the Cardinals it seems like, and people put a sign up with me wearing a Cardinals hat saying how much I hate the Giants and they hate me because I love the Cardinals. And then I come home and the Cardinals fans are saying I love the Giants and I hate the Cardinals and my dad is rolling over in his grave. You just can’t win that game” …

“It’s easy to understand. They don’t hear it from their hometown announcers during the season. So when I’m chasing these little fires down, and having it open while I was doing a game. I was in Philadelphia actually, from what I remember, and I had the feed open and I was doing the game – I think it was Boston at Philly – and if you want harsh comments do a Boston/Philly game and have your Twitter feed open. And I started reading the comments and finding myself almost reacting to it, and curtailing what I was saying or an opinion as I was going through the game. And I was like what am I doing? This is a dead-end. This is moronic. So I was like, you know what? It felt like when I dropped an Astronomy class in college when I was failing it, I’m just gonna delete this from my phone.”

Hey guys, you did it! Congratulations! A lot of those Tweets probably told Joe Buck to kill himself or fuck himself or do something else to himself, but he logged off. Minor victory for you, I guess?

Kyle: I don’t get the Joe Buck hate. He’s very good. Maybe not always crazy excitable (though I feel that’s more commonly-held belief than reality), but I’d take him over Jim Nantz any day (for everything except golf). Or over dead-man-walking Al Michaels, who sounds about as excited to do a Sunday Night Football broadcast as a kid preparing for an algebra test. Buck and Tirico, all day.