Fire guts home of St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster's widow

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A fire early this morning ripped through the suburban St. Louis home of the late Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck.

According to the media reports, the fire awoke Buck's widow, Carole Buck, around 1 a.m. this morning. She called 911 herself and escaped the blaze unharmed.

Several fire departments making it a multiple alarm fire, responded to the call and have apparently rendered the home at 11 Glenn Creek Lane in Ladue, St. Louis, MO... a total loss.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the fire that gutted the widow's home. Julie Buck says her mother thought she smelled something unusual Monday evening but never gave it much more thought.

Jack Buck, the former Cardinals broadcaster, died in St. Louis in 2002. Carole Buck moved into the house in Ladue about a year after her husband's death, 2003.

She is now resting at her son's home which plans are to stay during this tragedy.
It wasn't until 6am before the police department opened the roads surrounding the area of her home.

Fortunately much of her late husband's memorabilia is located in the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum. This is the hall of fame for the St. Louis Cardinals and is currently located in downtown St. Louis, in the same building as the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame, near the site of the old Busch Stadium and the new Busch Stadium.

The Hall of Fame will move into a new location as part of the Ballpark Village upon the project's completion, sometime around the year 2010. To experience St. Louis’ bonafide baseball roots, visit The Hill. An old working class Italian neighborhood with restaurants, bocce courts and scores of low brick attached houses, Cardinals signs and pennants flutter all over. Hill residents are proud that baseball legend Yogi Berra grew up on Elizabeth Street, (renamed Hall of Fame Way) since the small street is where not only Berra, but player/sportscaster Joe Garagiola and revered Cardinals sportscaster Jack Buck all were raised. Berra’s house has a small figurine with a little angel holding a baseball bat on the front lawn. This neighborhood (not far from bucolic Missouri Botanical Gardens) gives a sense of the urban core of Cardinal fans.

Anyways, what about the truly memorabilia of a husband to a wife? This is what inspired me to want to write about the sincerity of her true loss. Imagine the emptiness Mrs. Buck must feel. The years that the married couple lived in the public eye, the travels, the social life and entertaining... all the photographs and recordings of Jack that she personally kept. To her, I am positive that it was priceless.

There are many many items that buyers would have paid a grand price for if the personal items were released. It all is just a sad loss to history. So this was just not another home totally damaged by fire but that of unknown historic memorabilia. Thankfully no one was injured.

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