'He's a rarity in this business' Joe Buck gives high praise to Chip Caray as they team up to call Cardinals game Monday night

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Take two on the Buck and Caray partnership being revived again.

Joe Buck and Chip Caray will team up Monday night to call the St. Louis Cardinals opening series matchup against the defending World Series Champion Texas Rangers.

The game will mark Buck's first baseball game he has called since the 2021 World Series between the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves and the first game Buck has called on the local level since 2007.

Buck and Caray were supposed to team up earlier in the season to call a Cardinals-Cubs matchup at Busch Stadium in May, but rain forced the team-up to be rescheduled to Monday night.

"It's all warm and fuzzy feelings going down to the ballpark getting ready for tonight's game," said Buck on Total Information A.M. Monday.

Buck says calling a game with Caray will be fun experience for him because not only that they haven't worked together in the broadcast booth before, but the sport of baseball has changed quite a bit since Buck left Fox Sports in March 2022 to join ESPN to call Monday Night Football games alongside his longtime partner Troy Aikman.

"It will the first game I've done in three years and the first time I've ever worked with the pitch clock and everything else that goes into that," said Buck. "I'm anxious to see that the timing feels like if it does feel that much faster to me, after doing 30+ years of baseball without a pitch clock."

Buck said when he agreed to do the broadcast, he wanted to make sure that Caray was going to be ok with it and Caray has been more than welcoming to him.

"Broadcasters get real territorial and Chip was the opposite of that," said Buck. "He flung the doors open. My wife, my little boys, everybody was welcomed and he does not need to be that way."

"He's a rarity in this business. I like to think I'm the same way, and I know my dad (Jack Buck) was, but those little things go a long way. To know he's there to root for me tonight, I'm there rooting for him and we're there to have a good time together, it makes all the difference in the world. It was not that way when I started when I was ironically filling in one time and working with Ken Wilson and I think there was a little bit of friction there."

Buck says he believes that Caray views being in the broadcast booth and calling Cardinals games the same way he and his dad have: that they're just lucky to be able to have the job and fulfilling the dream of calling Cardinals games.

"Thinking you have 'an ownership' of it I think is misguided," said Buck. "I think it is bigger than that, it's bigger than the announcer and I've always approached it that way and I always saw my dad did it the same way."