Joe Buck joined Dan Le Batard on the latter’s radio show Monday night to chat about angry fan crank calls, his own personal baseball card, and that one time he vacationed in Mexico and got absolutely baked.
The hazy recollection stemmed from a trip to Cabo San Lucas that Buck took in 2011. At the time, he was recovering from a “bad hair plug operation” that left him with a paralyzed vocal cord—this bit, along with the fact that his decades-long obsession with hair plugs almost derailed his career, was revealed last fall during the promo tour for his memoir. Considering he was also in the midst of a divorce, Buck headed for his personal spot in Cabo for some R&R.
Initially, the plan was to have a sober, yoga-filled weekend of relaxation. Instead, Buck said he got trashed on tequila and hit the driving range as soon as he got there. But even the far-reaching powers of agave couldn’t help everyone’s favorite NFL booth analyst find the inner chill he sought out. So, naturally, Buck decided to get high.
On the radio, Buck alleged this was the first time in his life he partook—“I’d seen pot all around me in college, I’d seen coke and ecstasy in high school. Always avoided that kind of stuff.” Given his ongoing vocal cord recovery, Buck opted for the classic first-timer route: a pot brownie. The story then becomes achingly familiar for anyone who’s tried edibles, talked to someone who’s tried edibles, or has even heard of edibles.
Buck ate his brownie—the whole brownie, of course—at dinner with a friend; after 45 minutes pass, he told his friend he wasn’t feel anything and suggested they eat another half. It was only after, when they were being driven to a local bar, that Buck got extremely fucked up. I’ll let him take it from here:
As I’m riding down there, I’m trying to text somebody and the letters start flying off my phone into my face. I’m like, ‘Ah, this is not going to be good.’ We show up, theres a bachelorette party going on. I’m frightened, I’m scared. I’m avoiding them. I sit down and I can’t feel my legs. I turn to the guy that drove us down there and said, “I need to leave right now.” He’s drinking a Coca Cola. I said, “I need to drink that, and i need to get out of here right now.” He helps me to my feet. We stagger. I somehow magically get down the steps and to the exit. I think we’re going to go right. He thinks we’re going to go left. He pulls me left as I go right. I pass out on the ground. I go under the rope with my head hanging off into the marina. I damn near died. I had a dream while I was down there. I popped up and I went from completely out of it to completely sober, worrying that in the next four minutes it was going to pop up on Deadspin that I just went down at a bar in Cabo.
Word to the wise: Always wait the extra 45 minutes.