A Hit and a Drive

[Sam Charles]

Buck Martinez has epitomized Blue Jays baseball for close to four decades. His steady and warm presence has perhaps eclipsed the likes of Tom Cheek, Jerry Howarth, Don Chevrier and Dan Shulman, especially for younger fans.

He has been catcher and captain in the broadcast booth; player and manager on the field; confidant and teacher, a living bridge between expansion growing pains, pennant chases and modern playoff rushes. In the simplest terms, he has been a Blue Jay, on the field, on the top step and right beside us in the stands (in our headsets).

To explain what Buck Martinez means to the Blue Jays is to chart a timeline in a sport that constantly reinvents itself. He arrived in Toronto via trade as a veteran catcher in 1981, appearing in six seasons as a player.

His move behind the microphone was somewhat related to his infamous broken leg that he sustained while turning a double play in 1985. The time off to rehab led him to reflect on what he wanted to do after his playing career, and once he retired in 1986, he entered broadcasting.

Since then, he has been a consistent presence in the broadcast booth, with the only exceptions being the year and a half when he managed the team from 2001-02, and the time he took off in 2022 and '25 while undergoing cancer treatment. 

Of course, Jays fans have had to share Martinez with the rest of baseball. He spent some time working for the Baltimore Orioles and worked on and off with ESPN.

Whether you were a fan of early Buck and Dan Shulman or Buck and Pat Tabler or the most recent version of Buck and Dan, you know that Buck knows baseball. Apart from playing the game as a catcher in the majors for 17 years, Martinez has called well over 4,000 games. For comparison's sake, legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully called over 9,000 games during his 67-year career. Tom Cheek called 4,306 consecutive regular-season games and 411 playoff games from 1977 until 2004.

Some have described Martinez's style as the inner narrative of a catcher’s mind, shaped by thousands of pitch calls, by collisions at the plate, by relationships with pitchers and umpires, by the daily habit of seeing the entire field at once. That is what he brought to each and every broadcast.

There are countless photos of him leaning on the cage during batting practice, connecting with players and coaches. His connections within the organization and across MLB run deep.

Clearly a student of the game, his broadcast colleagues have described his dedication to the craft as unparalleled. Somewhere between his catchphrases of “a swing and a drive!” and “get up, ball!” a particular Buck cadence formed, equal parts technical and theatrical, as familiar as the exterior stadium shot before first pitch.

When he became the Blue Jays’ skipper in 2001, he brought that same blend of clarity and conviction. His combined record of 100–115 won't put him in the conversation with great managers like Bobby Cox, Cito Gaston or even John Gibbons, but his brief managerial tenure was yet another way that he was inextricably linked to this franchise from every angle. It speaks to his willingness to step where the team needed him.

When Martinez stepped away from the booth in 2022 for health reasons, he was missed. On July 26 of that year, he returned to an ovation that felt like a reunion. It wasn’t just the fans that responded, but the players, who tipped their caps from the field.

Last week, he and Sportsnet announced his retirement. He mentioned in his farewell letter, posted on social media, that he really wanted to be a part of this 50th season for the Jays, but after careful consideration with his family, it felt like the right time to step away.

The numbers speak for themselves – nearly 40 years in the booth, more than 4,000 games called, two Sports Emmys – but only tell one side of the story. Buck is the TV voice of the Blue Jays, just like Hall of Fame announcer Tom Cheek was to the team’s radio broadcasts.

What does Buck Martinez mean to this franchise? He means continuity. A club that moved through front office overhauls and bursts of reinvention never lost the thread that connected new rosters to old ones.

If there is poetry in baseball, it is often unplanned. A flare drops in. A slider doesn’t. A voice ages with an audience, and without anyone scheduling it, the voice becomes the sport’s local idiom. “A hit and a drive” feels like a title built for Buck because it captures the old and the new at once. 

Martinez was there when the Jays were figuring out who they were and still there when they once more demanded the country’s full attention in the postseason. He did it with humility, preparation, resilience and the conviction that a team is bigger than the man describing it.

Soon, a new voice will anchor the summer. It will be informative and educational in its own way, and it will earn trust over time, because that’s the only way it can be earned. But for anyone who found their fandom with Martinez in their ear, through TSN and Sportsnet, through grand slams that bent the night, through quiet innings that carried a city home, there will always be a frequency you can tune to without a device. It lives in memory, in the way you hear certain at‑bats before you see them, in the way a familiar phrase can prompt you to look up and find that a fly ball is going farther than you thought.

Perhaps it’s fitting that in the team’s 50th season, they will welcome a new voice (probably Joe Siddall) to the broadcast booth. At the same time, we can celebrate an old voice that will forever be part of the Blue Jays' broadcast tapestry.

View full article