No broadcaster was ever more consistently excellent

Some 13 years ago, this writer penned a column that amounted to a love song to the 1964 champion Redbirds on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of that heart-stopping autumn of thrills.

As much as to Gibby and Brock, Javier and Groat, Boyer and Sadecki, my little piece was a hymn to John Francis Buck.

For in a lifetime of listening -- I was born the year Mr. Buck came to St. Louis -- this precious man fulfilled his magic promise: On the radio, as someone noted where Buck was concerned, "the pictures were better."

Good.

Better.

Best.

The ultimate test of true excellence, a wise teacher once instructed us, is consistency. Surely, no broadcast professional can be said to have been more consistently excellent than Jack Buck.

Reflecting admiringly on a life so masterfully lived, as the song says, "the milestones backward run ... ."

The matchless pair: the voluble Harry Caray, he of the larger-than-life persona, and the droll Buck, he of the dry humor, the always kind, but rapier wit. His lovely wife, Carol, his eight children, his grandchildren. War hero and believing Christian, peerless master of ceremonies and -- perhaps, most of all -- friend.

Oh, how great are -- yes, are! -- his friendships:

Schoendienst and Musial.

Whitey and Gussie.

Dierdorf and Stram.

Costas, Scully, Prince Broeg and so many others.

The vast, latter category would emphatically include the bellhops, the waitresses, the shoeshine men, as we now hear and read their testimonies, which are legion.

All were the same to him.

I can claim no long personal friendship, having met him personally only a couple of years ago.

But one poignant memory stands out among the rest.

In September 1999, the bust of Stan Musial was unveiled in the rotunda of the state Capitol.

Seated while waiting for the ceremony to begin, the sight of Jack, whom I hadn't seen in person for several years, was a punch to the gut: This great man was obviously suffering terribly from Parkinson's, as well as, doubtless, from the medication.

Yet here, where others would have gone off to hide, was Jack Buck, the public man, soldiering on, there to serve his friend, and all of us.

Through our tearful smiles, then, and with the confidence of Mark Twain's "Christian with four aces," surely we know what it was that Jack heard that Tuesday evening at around 11:08 p.m.:

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Enter into my kingdom.

Peter Kinder is assistant to the chairman of Rust Communications and president pro tem of the Missouri Senate.