The Phillies’ Tim McCarver: The Philadelphians’ Favorite Sporting Hall-of-Fame 1963-85
McCarver became a broadcaster, calling games for the Phillies, Cardinals, New York Mets, New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants. He later became an analyst for Fox, ABC and CBS, where he called a then-record 23 World Series and 20 All-Star Games.
McCarver made his major league debut in 1959 with the St. Louis Cardinals, where he was a two-time World Series champion. McCarver also played for the Philadelphia Phillies, Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox before retiring in 1980.
The owner of the Phils said that Tim joined the team at the top of his career and returned for his final six seasons as a leader and helped the club to three straight NLCS appearances and their first-ever World Series title. His playing career ended and fans around the world listened to him talk about their favorite team. For Tim’s leadership, friendship and voice, the Philadelphians are eternally grateful.
“Some broadcasters think that their responsibility is to the team and the team only,” McCarver told The New York Times soon after the Mets let him go. “I have never thought that. My No. 1 obligation is to the people who are watching the game. And I’ve always felt that praise without objective criticism ceases to be praise. To me, any intelligent person can figure that out.”
In 2012 he told the hall that he thought there was a bridge from being a catcher to talking about the view of the game. “It is translating that for the viewers. One of the hard things about television is staying contemporary and keeping it simple for the viewers.”
He spoke of the education he received as a newcomer in St. Louis, and that he attended black schools in Memphis. His teammates included Gibson and outfielder Curt Flood, Black players who did not hesitate to confront or tease McCarver. When McCarver used racist language against a Black child trying to jump a fence during spring training, Gibson would remember “getting right up in McCarver’s face.” He liked telling the story of drinking an orange soda during the hot spring training and Gibson asking him for some, then laughing when he flinched.
“It was probably Gibby more than any other Black man who helped me to overcome whatever latent prejudices I may have had,” McCarver wrote in his 1987 memoir “Oh, Baby, I Love It!”
McCarver met Carlton when the left-hander was a rookie in 1965 “with an independent streak wider than the Grand Canyon,” McCarver later wrote. After they were traded to Philadelphia, the two were close and became friends despite arguing on the mound. McCarver became Carlton’s designated catcher even though he admittedly had a below average throwing arm and overall didn’t compare defensively to the Phillies’ regular catcher, Gold Glover Bob Boone.
When he and Carlton died they would be buried six inches apart, the distance between the rubber on the pitching mound and home plate.
Younger baseball fans first knew him from his work in the broadcast booth, whether local games for the New York Mets and New York Yankees, as Jack Buck’s partner on CBS or with son Joe Buck for Fox from 1996-2013. McCarver won six Emmys and became enough of a brand name to be a punchline on “Family Guy”; write a handful of books, make cameos in “Naked Gun,” “Love Hurts” and other movies and even record an album, “Tim McCarver Sings Songs from the Great American Songbook.”
Knowledge was his trademark. In his spare time, he visited art museums, read books and could recite poetry from memory. He spent hours preparing for each game and was a one man scouting team at work. He seemed to have psychic powers at times. In Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, the Yankees drew in their infield with the bases loaded and only one out in the bottom of the 9th, and they went on to win the World Series. Relief ace Mariano Rivera was facing Arizona’s Luis Rodriquez.
“Rivera throws inside to left-handers,” McCarver observed. The shallow part of the outfield is where left-handed hitters get a lot of broken-bat hits. That’s the danger of bringing the infield in with a guy like Rivera on the mound.”
Olbermann said that the time he had to say it and the accuracy was comparable to a home run by Bill Mazeroski.
An Introspective Look at a Cardinals Classical Player: McCarver and an Honest Saying in his Opening Address to the Cardinals Hall of Fame
His wife, Anne, had homes in Florida and California. In the past, McCarver worked the occasional Cards game for Fox but he sat out the 2020 season due to concerns over carbon footprint. He was a recipient of a number of honors, the most important of them being a nomination into the Cardinals Hall of Fame.
“By the time I was 26 I had played in three World Series and I thought, ‘Man this is great, almost a World Series every year,” he said during his acceptance speech. Uh-uh. You can keep yourself honest by playing the game. I never played in another World Series.”