It's been more than six and a half years since everyone started hating Joe Buck

It feels even longer than that.

I think Joe Buck is excellent at what he does.  No shit.  I think he has a great voice for commentary, I think he's smart and knowledgable and capable and a real professional.

But when I ask people if they like Joe Buck, they usually say no.

And, like me, they remember with crystal clear recollection the moment that they stopped liking Joe Buck.

January 9th, 2005.

When Joe Buck lit into Randy Moss.

I remember thinking "Whoa!  This guy doesn't speak for me.  This guy is not like me."

Because, before that, Joe Buck had seemed like our guy.  Young.  In that the way Howard Cosell was our parents sportscaster, Joe Buck seemed to be making a name for himself to be a dominant voice in the sports of our era.

And I was cool with it.

Until Randy Moss fake-mooned the gang at Lambeau and Joe Buck clutched his pearls and shook his fist.

Then I knew he wasn't our guy.

Because by then we'd seen all kind of things that apparently never made it to the conservative suburb Joe Buck grew up in.  

Things like rap music and grunge and O.J. and Rodney King and two Gulf Wars and 9/11 and a host of other events that helped squash the optimism and promise and patriotic high ground that we learned in the 80's.

So, by 2005, we were all a little more cynical.  More jaded.

Which is why, when Randy Moss fake-mooned Packer Nation, it wasn't that big of a deal.

And that's when most of us found out:

Neither was Joe Buck.