Joe Buck stands up for St. Louis in calling Kroenke out

Written by D. Buffa

If you had any reservation about Joe Buck’s feelings towards his hometown before today, they surely are gone now.

With the St. Louis Rams relocation/new stadium/multi-faceted storm of uncertainty circling the team on a daily basis, fans need a pick me up from a national face. Today, they got just that in the form of local boy Joe Buck taking to Twitter to slam Rams majority owner Stan Kroenke and his plan to relocate the football team to Los Angeles. Check out Buck’s twitter profile for the stream of comments, but it pretty read like this.

What Stan Kroenke is doing to St. Louis Rams fans with this ordeal is a joke and an “insult”.

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After all, Stan pulled the team away from potential owner Shahid Khan years ago in a colossal shift in direction. Without publicly telling fans right away that the Rams would be in St. Louis for a long time, Stan just took the team back towards his corner of the room. He pulled his card and declared other potential owners useless, a little nugget he had built into the alliance with Georgia Frontiere.

When that happened, I had a sick feeling what Stan was up to. He didn’t care about the football fans in St. Louis. He cared about future dollars and cents. He always wanted to move these Rams west. It was never in question. He drove up ticket prices. He stayed in hiding while the Edward Jones Dome struggled to remain up to code. He checked out and bought land in Los Angeles to build a stadium. This was all part of the plan. At the end of the day, Stan was a shrewd decrepit businessman who played St. Louis for a fool. His intentions were clear from the get go. Now everybody is playing catch up.

All Buck did today was voice an opinion that many know and feel but don’t have the national weight to swing.  He called out Kroenke for being playing dirty, lying to the people of St. Louis and throwing a heavy hook towards the body of the Midwest when it comes to its football prospects.

Save me your talk about Stan Kroenke just doing what businessmen do and trying to make money. It doesn’t add up. You don’t see Bill DeWitt III trying to swindle St. Louis Cardinals fans while putting a crap show on the field for years. Tom Stillman has put his heart and soul into the Blues and making them competitive.

What Kroenke did here was lay the foundation for a move years ago. Threatening to move in order to get a new stadium deal financed. Having the dome(which has only been standing since the mid 1990’s) go on a year to year lease with the Rams and the NFL. Slowly but surely, Kroenke has worked all these moves into a plan to leave.

Kudos to Buck for unleashing the truth. Do me a favor and don’t focus too hard on the specifics of what Buck said and concentrate on the meat of the statement. What Kroenke is doing is 100% cutthroat, heartless and it has the potential to damage St. Louis for a long time. When it comes to stadiums/domes in the downtown area of a city, it’s not just about football. It’s about community growth, jobs and building something that can spark life downtown. Ballpark Village, Busch Stadium and Scottrade Center can’t do all the heavy lifting themselves. St. Louis needs the economic punch of a football stadium. It’s fuel for a city. With a new stadium, the Ed Dome could be left to schedule a number of events and dates and the Northern Riverfront could become a booming section of the city with the NFL’s full support behind it.

Stan was never on board with a new stadium here. Not for a second. He always wanted California. He’s holding the Rams over the Pacific ocean while Dave Peacock and Bob Blitz coordinate with the city of St. Louis, Governor Jay Nixon and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to keep the team in St. Louis in a frantic last ditch effort. While signs aren’t dismal for the underdogs, Kroenke is making it a tough fight. Instead of speaking with his words and keeping one foot inside a city, Stan is letting an empty suit jacket and checkbook speak for him. What a joke indeed!

Once again, Stan’s whole ordeal smells like garbage. He pried the team away from Khan with this plan in mind. He always wanted the team out west, where they came from. He’s a scoundrel for insulting a fan base who has shown up to see a pathetic team for years. Buck just called him out. He didn’t use a cryptic arrangement of 140 characters to zing Kroenke either. He threw a series of hooks, jabs and straight right hands to the temple of Stan’s phony initiative. Sometimes, integrity stands taller than dollar bills. Buck’s words won’t fix stadium issues. Just nice to see a big stick take a big swing.

Thanks for speaking up for a city of voices, Joe Buck. Thanks for stepping up for a city you grew up in and are attached to forever. A place you keep sacred roots. Buck didn’t have to say anything. He could have stayed quiet, walked the status quo, and hid behind the mighty Fox kingdom. Instead, he took to the most powerful modern outspoken device to prove his point and that’s social media. He wanted the fans to hear him.

We heard you, Joe. Loud and clear. Thank you for being the voice of the people.

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