Buck nails it in Game 5 – An appreciation of Sportsnet’s Dan and Buck

On what may be in the final game in the 2025 World Series today, and at the end of a remarkable season for the Toronto Blue Jays I am glad to share the appreciation below from the Toronto Sun’s Mike Ganter.

AIRWAVES: Blue Jays broadcaster Buck Martinez defies the odds and the adages calling Game 5

The saying goes Father Time eventually catches up to all of us, but you would have a hard time convincing Buck Martinez of that right now.

The one-time Blue Jays catcher turned Blue Jays manager turned Blue Jays broadcaster has a front-row seat for this magical run the team he works for is currently on and he’s not about to give it up.

At the age of 76, Martinez and long-time broadcast booth partner Dan Shulman are battling though the same grind as the Trey Yesavage’s and Addison Barger’s, young men not even a third of Martinez’s age.

Sure the players are exerting a ton of physical energy not required by the fellas up in the booth, but being on and alert for 18 consecutive innings – remember the broadcasters only get the commercials off — like Shulman and Martinez were in Game 3 takes plenty of stamina, just the same to say nothing of coming back and doing it again 17 hours later.

And the broadcasters are subjected to the same travel the players have been and in a playoff year that has now meant two trips into the Western time zone. That’s not a walk in the park either — even if there is the use of a chartered airplane to get you there and back.

Now throw in the fact that Martinez only a few short months ago was going through chemotherapy sessions to fight lung cancer and then, finished with that, insisted on getting back to work at the job he loves, one starts to get a sense of just how much this job and this game mean to him.

Through it all, Martinez continues to make the Sportsnet broadcast better with his knowledge of the game and his willingness to share the opinions that have been formed by 56 years in the Majors.

Here are a few moments from that broadcast booth that stood out in the Jays’ 6-1 win in Game 5 that sends the series back to Toronto with the Jays needing one win to become World Series champions.

ONCE A CATCHER, ALWAYS A CATCHER

Other than two games in the outfield as a rookie, two games at DH in the final few years of his career, and one single inning that he actually pitched, the entirety of Martinez’s career has come behind the plate.

So it was no surprise at all in the fourth inning of Wednesday’s game when starter Trey Yesavage started to get a little out of sorts that the former catcher came out. The trouble began for Yesavage with two out when he hit Freddie Freeman with a pitch on an overthrown splitter and Freeman was already up 0-2 on him. The inning, really the only inning all night that was like this, got a little shakier when Yesavage followed that up by giving up a weakly hit ground ball up the middle off the bat of Teoscar Hernandez to put two runners on.

With the Jays holding a 3-1 lead, Martinez at that point said if he were Jays’ catcher Alejandro Kirk in the current situation, he would go out and have a word with his pitcher.

Sure enough, seconds later Kirk, mask now resting on top of his head, made his way out to the mound.

After that little pep talk from his catcher, Yesavage settled back down and got Tommy Edman to pop out to second to end the only real threat the Dodgers managed the rest of the night.

Later on in a post-game interview with Hazel Mae, Yesavage would  admit he needed that visit in that moment.

NEVER AFRAID TO PUSH BACK

In this era when barking back against the stranglehold analytics has on the game is shied away from, Martinez has never been one to stay quiet.

So it was in the bottom of the sixth when Yesavage was sent back out to face the top of the Dodgers lineup for a third time.

With Shulman teeing him up nicely with an open-ended question about letting the young 22-year-old go at the likes of Shohei Ohtani, Will Smith and Mookie Betts a third time, Martinez put to rest even the thought of taking the red-hot Yesavage out at that point.

“That old thing about three times through the order?” Martinez scoffed. “Throw it out the window.” Martinez knew he was seeing a pitching performance for the ages and no past numbers or averages entered into the equation for him.

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS

Over a career that spans those 56 years, there are plenty of friendships Martinez has made around the league. But friends or not, when someone screws up, Martinez points it out.

Former Blue Jay Teoscar Hernandez is both a hitter and a man Martinez has plenty of respect for but when the Dodgers right fielder overplayed a ball that should have been a single into a triple, Martinez called it out.

When Daulton Varsho led off the fourth with a high pop fly to shallow right, Martinez chastised Hernandez for making a low percentage sliding attempt to catch the ball that wound up getting past him and giving Varsho a gift triple. The right play in that situation, as Martinez pointed out, was for Hernandez to keep the ball in front of him and hold Varsho to a single. That play led to the Jays’ fourth run of the night.

AND HOW ABOUT THAT MARTINEZ ROLODEX

Another advantage to having a man behind the mic with as many years in the big leagues as Martinez are the stories he’s compiled and the people he’s met along the way. Twice in the broadcast Martinez name dropped former teammates or players he knew who were contacting him over the course of the game.

First it was former Jay Jack Morris who was texting to tell Martinez he and Paul Molitor had decided to bring their sons to Game 6 of the series when it returns to Toronto. A few innings later there was former Royals teammate and roommate George Brett who had texted to point out that despite growing up just 30 miles from Dodgers Stadium, he was cheering on the Jays.

It’s those little extras that take a broadcast from good to great and Martinez is front and centre in most of them

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