"Hey, dad?" *sniff* "Wanna catch ... more market share for a billion-dollar beer conglomerate using images of you now that you're dead?"

This is a real Budweiser commercial. Barring any errors, this is a verbatim transcript. This is also a bit disgusting to me because Jack Buck once gave me — a perfect stranger — two free tickets to see the Giants host the A's at the resumed Game Three of the 1989 World Series. He could have sold those tickets or given them away to anyone, greased some wheels or paid-forward a favor. Instead, he did something unmaterialistic and incredibly sweetly generous so a little kid could see his favorite team play an unforgettable ballgame.

Also, for the purposes of understanding this post, please bear in mind two things:

1. Joe Buck is the son of legendary Cardinals announcer Jack Buck. This is why Joe Buck has a job — an open secret acknowledged almost universally on sports blogs and message boards and even alluded to by other, better announcers. His talents run the gamut from intolerable to tolerable. He's admitted in the past that baseball bores him, and this horrible attitude shines through. The delivery he uses for a double-play or a clutch hit is wooden and disinterested compared to the exhilarating vim with which he reads off mandatory ad copy or FOX announcements.

2. Jack Buck is dead.
___________________

BUDWEISER COMMERCIAL - 0:30

INT. TRADITIONAL WOOD & BRASS BAR - LATE AFTERNOON OR NIGHT

FOX MLB commentator JOE BUCK sits on a stool at the bar, left. He's managing to evoke boredom while sitting at the bar. Opposite him, right, is actor TERRY KINNEY, best known as McManus on OZ and recently appearing as the sergeant on ABC's The Unusuals. These are just regular million-dollar earnin' TV guys. At the bar. Just hangin'. You would barely even recognize them unless you slid your platinum sunglasses off your nose and wiped the stripper-ass-applied Cristal smudges off your TV screen — or had Lupe do it for you.

TERRY

(handing JOE a beer)

                                                       Hey, Joe. If you could have a Bud with anybody, who'd it be?

JOE

                                                       Anybody?

TERRY

                                                       Anybody.

JOE

                                                       It'd be the guy that took me to my first ballgame.

Screen shows pictures of Jack Buck with an infant Joe Buck.

JOE (CONT'D)

                                                       A guy who could command a room from a hundred miles away.

Screen: a young Jack Buck posing near an old-fasioned radio mike, followd by a picture of a middle-aged Jack Buck posing with Joe Buck for a before-prom or before-graduation picture.

JOE (CONT'D)

                                                       Popular —

Screen: Jack Buck in a stadium, surrounded by what appears to be seated Cardinals fans.

JOE (CONT'D)

                                                       But humble —

Screen: an elderly Jack Buck holding a grandchild and watching JOE on FOX's MLB coverage with Tim McCarver.

JOE (CONT'D)

                                                       People loved the way he spoke —

Screen: a picture of Jack and Joe together in an announcing booth, then switches back to the bar and TERRY still leaning in earnestly to listen to JOE.

JOE (CONT'D)

                                                       I just loved the way he listened.

Screen: BUDWEISER LOGO.

JOE (CONT'D)

                                                       Here's to you, dad.

Screen: another picture of Jack and Joe.

Fadeout.