Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Buchek signed a $59,000 bonus contract with his hometown Cardinals upon graduation from McKinley High School.[1] He began his professional career as an 18-year-old at the highest levels of minor league baseball, splitting the 1960 season between Double-A and Triple-A. He got his first taste of major league action in June 1961 and spent part of 1963 with the Cardinals before making the big league roster in 1964 and spending five consecutive full seasons in the majors.
Buchek remained with the Cardinals as a backup middle infielder in 1965 and 1966, appearing in 55 and then 100 games respectively. However, with Groat (then Dal Maxvill) and Javier established as the Redbirds' double-play combination, he did not break into the regular lineup, starting a total of 69 games at shortstop and 20 at second base during those two seasons. On May 12, 1966, he scored the first run ever at Busch Memorial Stadium.[3]
Buchek was traded along with Art Mahaffey and Tony Martínez from the Cardinals to the Mets for Ed Bressoud, Danny Napoleon and cash on April 1, 1967.[4] The Mets were seeking a new second baseman after trading four-year veteran Ron Hunt to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Mets' general manager, Bing Devine, had signed Buchek when he was front-office boss of the Cardinals in 1960. In 1967, Buchek started 92 games at second base (along with 14 games at third base and five at shortstop), and set personal bests in games played (124), hits (97), home runs (14) and runs batted in (41). Among Mets fans he was known for starting an improbable comeback victory against the Atlanta Braves on July 9, 1967. Down 4–3 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and nobody on base, Buchek, batting .230, was sent in to pinch hit for Bud Harrelson, who already had four hits, including a double, that game. Buchek hit a home run to tie the game, and the Mets went on to score another run to win 5–4.[5] But in 1968, he fell to third on the Mets' second base depth chart, behind both Ken Boswell and Phil Linz, and batted only .182.
During that off-season, Buchek was traded twice, first back to the Cardinals and then to the Philadelphia Phillies. He spent 1969 with the Phillies' Triple-A Eugene farm club, where he batted .246 in 127 games, then retired from baseball at age 27. For his MLB career, he batted .220 with 259 hits, 35 doubles, 11 triples, 22 home runs and 108 runs batted in in 421 games played.
