Tim McCarver, All-Star Catcher And Hall Of Fame Broadcaster, Dies At 81

It was early in their sports broadcast careers, although Bob Costas already had a few years of experience under his belt when he was paired with Tim McCarver to call a game between the California Angels and Boston Red Sox on June 14, 1980 in Anaheim.

“To show you how long ago it was, (Rod) Carew stole a base and Yaz (Carl Yastrzemski) hit a home run in that game,” Costas said in an interview Friday.

But despite being a rookie behind the mic, McCarver had the wealth of experience and baseball knowledge from a 21-year big-league career, one that stretched from 1959 to 1980 with four teams, and which included winning two World Series rings with the St. Louis Cardinals while serving as the batterymate for Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton.

McCarver, who died Thursday at 81, was the rare athlete who seamlessly transitioned from accomplished player to seasoned TV star after hanging up his spikes. Starting with local Phillies broadcasts in 1980 — and the few network games he did with Costas that same year — McCarver carved out a Hall of Fame broadcast career and was paired with everyone from Ralph Kiner to Joe Buck.

“Some people have one or two strengths. (McCarver’s) recipe had more ingredients in it,” Costas said. “His broadcasting had texture to it. One of the things that’s often overlooked but really important – Tim was a good audience. If the person in the booth with him said something funny, McCarver laughed. And he had that distinctive, infectious laugh.”

Born in Memphis on October 16, 1941, McCarver signed with the Cardinals out of high school for what was then a whopping $75,000. He made his Cardinals debut in 1959 and became the club’s starting catcher throughout most of the 1960s. He was a two-time All-Star with St. Louis.

He later had two stints with the Phillies, and eventually became Carlton’s personal catcher when they were Phillies teammates in the mid to late-’70s. McCarver was part of a select group of major leaguers who played in four different decades. The Phillies signed him to play in a few games late in the 1980 season, the year the club won its first World Series title. (McCarver was not part of that Phillies’ postseason run).

By then, McCarver’s pivot to the broadcast booth was underway.

Costas said McCarver’s “playing career informed the broadcasting,” and that one of the signs of an excellent sports TV analyst is whether they make the other people around them better. Costas said McCarver had that trait in spades.

“Tim clicked so well with Ralph Kiner (for Mets games),” said Costas. “Ralph’s virtues were his knowledge of the game, his personality, his storytelling, but I think Ralph was reenergized by Tim being in the booth with him. Their conversations were priceless.”

By the time he was paired with Joe Buck on Fox in 1996, McCarver was one of baseball’s premier analysts, and one who had a penchant for predicting plays before they unfolded on the diamond. His most famous call might have come in the 2001 World Series between the Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Yankees were leading Game 7 in the bottom of the ninth inning in Arizona, and Yankee manager Joe Torre had dominant closer Mariano Rivera on the mound. A fourth straight Yankees World Series championship seemed a foregone conclusion.

But the Diamondbacks tied the score, 2-2, and then loaded the bases with one out. Arizona’s Luis Gonzalez, a lefty batter, stepped up against Rivera, the right-hander known for his signature cut fastball. Torre had the infield drawn in for a possible double-play ground ball.

Gonzalez fouled off the first pitch.

“The one problem is Rivera throws inside to left-handers, and left-handers get a lot of broken-bat hits into shallow outfield, the shallow part of the outfield. That’s the danger in bringing the infield in with a guy like Rivera on the mound,” McCarver said right before Rivera threw his second pitch to Gonzalez.

The rest is history, as Gonzalez blooped a broken-bat single over Derek Jeter’s head into shallow center field and the Diamondbacks hoisted the club’s first World Series trophy.

Prior to Gonzalez’s at-bat, when there were runners on first and second with no outs, Arizona’s Jay Bell had laid a sacrifice bunt that Rivera fielded and threw to third base. Yankees third baseman Scott Brosius made the force out.

Costas said that McCarver was quick to point out — during the video replay — that Bell was only halfway down the first-base line when Brosius recorded the first out of the inning, and that Brosius could have thrown to first for the double play.

“Rivera so quick to third base that Brosius actually had a play at first had he come off the bag,” said McCarver during the ‘01 telecast. “But Brosius content for one.”

“Tim’s insights were so fresh, his personality was so ebullient, and his enjoyment of it was so apparent,” said Costas.

McCarver was with Fox through the 2013 season, and then was an analyst for the Cardinals’ network, working about three dozen games a season, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Like Costas, McCarver was a Ford C. Frick Award winner, for excellence in broadcasting. Two years after he called his last Fox baseball game, McCarver was invited to join Costas one more time, for an MLB Network telecast of a 2015 Cardinals-Padres game at Busch Stadium.

“We were friends for a very long time,” said Costas. “When he was winding it down, I asked MLB Network if I could do a game with him. We did a Cardinals game purposely, and it was seamless for Tim. It was like a nine-inning conversation.

“But the game also had several strategic twists to it – should they do this? Should they do that? And McCarver excelled at that. It was almost luck, that the game and setting provided a canvas for him to do a whole lot of the things that he was known for, which was gratifying to me, because all I had was this one shot. He brought so much to his craft.”