How Joe Buck’s Hair Plug Addiction Almost Ended His Broadcasting Career Five Years Ago

People can become addicted to a number of different things that can jeopardize their careers. For FOX broadcaster Joe Buck, it was hair plugs.

That’s right. Hair plugs.

In Buck’s upcoming memoir, “Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, And The Things I’m Not Allowed To Say On TV,” the multi-sport play-by-play commentator reveals the throat virus that caused him to lose his voice and kept him out of work in 2011 was a total lie. In fact, Buck’s vocal chord was paralyzed after complications resulting from his eighth hair plug procedure, according to Sports Illustrated’s preview of the book.

The book, written with Sports Illustrated senior writer Michael Rosenberg and scheduled to be released Nov. 15, will reveal Buck had his first hair transplant procedure at age 24 and that a variety of factors contributed to his inability to stop going back for more.

“Broadcasting is a brutal, often unfair business, where looks are valued more than skill,” Buck writes. “I was worried that if I lost my hair, I would lose my job. O.K., that’s bull—-, it was vanity. Pure vanity. I just told myself I was doing it for TV.”

Prior to the start of the 2011 baseball season, Buck underwent his eighth procedure, but something went wrong. When Buck awoke from the anesthetic, his vocal chord was paralyzed because of a cuff the surgery center used to protect him.

As Buck explains, the events created a lie that spiraled out of control, but his memoir offers a platform to finally come clean.

“When I started thinking about writing a book, this was the main reason why,” Buck told SI. “It wasn’t about stories with my dad. I wanted to detail the time in my life where I had a lot going on and I was stressed, a time when I started to take anti-depressants and was going through a divorce. Then I had this situation with my voice that rocked me to my knees and shook every part of my world.”

Thumbnail photo via Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY Sports Images