Fox's Joe Buck: Decision to withhold news of Edinson Volquez's father's death was right call
Edinson Volquez of the Kansas City Royals prepares to throw a pitch in the fourth inning against the New York Mets during Game One of the 2015 World Series at Kauffman Stadium on Oct. 27, 2015 in Kansas City, Missouri. Credit: Getty Images / Doug Pensinger
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- As far as Joe Buck is concerned, if Fox had decided to report on the death of Edinson Volquez's father's early in Game 1 of the World Series, "Then we stink. We have absolutely no discretion."
Instead, the network, at the request of the Royals pitcher's family, withheld the information from its audience Tuesday until after Volquez had left the game following the sixth inning.
He subsequently departed for the Dominican Republic but is expected to rejoin the team for Game 3 in New York Friday.
ESPN Deportes first reported just before game time the death of Volquez's father, Daniel, at 63, which prompted much internal discussion at Fox, including input from two key members with print journalism backgrounds in analyst Tom Verducci and reporter Ken Rosenthal.
It was Fox's understanding that Volquez did not know what had happened, and it feared him finding out from a TV in the clubhouse.
"We made the decision," producer Pete Macheska said before Game 2 Wednesday night. "I wouldn't want to find out that way, it's as simple as that. And if there was any chance that someone would find out in the clubhouse and they let him know, well, there's no chance [we would risk that].
"If he finds out on his phone on somebody else's thing, it's off my watch. I don't want that on our shoulders . . . I want no part of that."
Rosenthal did discuss the news on his Twitter feed but did not go on the air with it until after he had been told that Volquez had been informed.
Said Buck: "It's nobody's business. It's the guy's father. If he were a head of state or Edinson were aware of it when he went out there and it was weighing on him, that's one story. If he's unaware of it and it's not affecting the game and the Royals are basically asking us to respect his wife's wishes by not letting him find out that his father had passed away and let him pitch a World Series game and then deal with it afterward, then we're going to follow that and respect that.
"That's the times we live in, everyone feels entitled to every piece of information and everybody races to be the first to tweet something out and at the end of the day it's nobody's business with somebody's father dying.
"As Pete said in an [internal] email, he said this is somebody's father and I can only tell you I wouldn't want to find out during a baseball game from a television baseball broadcast, so you respect the family's wishes. If people have a problem with that, I really don't have time for them. It makes no sense to me.
"If we, because we feel like we're the voice of this thing, feel like we're going to be the ones to open up that can of worms just because we want to beat the next guy to the Twitter world, then we stink. We have absolutely no discretion."
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
