I vividly remember the first time I met Tim McCarver.
I was covering a Rockies-Cardinals game at Busch Stadium. McCarver happened to be there and I sat down with him in the media dining room where I told him I was a longtime fan. Sometimes, even as we get older and more cynical, the little boy makes an appearance.
McCarver grinned and listened patiently while I told him that when I was a little league catcher — a reluctant, terrible catcher — he was my favorite player. I told him how my dad raised my brother, Steve, and me to be Cardinals fans in Colorado.
We talked about our shared passion for Civil War history, something else I got from my dad.
I even quoted one of McCarver’s quotes back to him: “Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn’t score any runs.”
McCarver could not have been nicer.
So when McCarver died Thursday of heart failure at age 81 in his native Memphis, it hit me hard.
As a kid, I admired McCarver as a bulldog catcher who came up big in the Cardinals’ World Series titles in 1964 and ’67. When I became a sportswriter, I admired him as a broadcaster who spoke with a faint Southern accent and provided incredible insight into the game he loved.
McCarver had a 34-year career broadcasting big-league baseball. He called 24 of the 29 World Series from 1985-2013, and for one stretch, he called postseason games for 29 consecutive years. He also called 22 All-Star games.
He had plenty of detractors. Some fans thought he talked too much and rehashed the obvious. But I learned a lot listening to him.
I also respected his candor. He didn’t sugarcoat things. On occasion, that got him into trouble. In 1992, he was drenched in the Braves’ clubhouse with buckets of ice water by two-sport superstar Deion Sanders, now the University of Colorado’s much-adored head football coach.
“Neon Deion” was upset about critical comments McCarver had made about Sanders leaving the Braves during a playoff series to play in an NFL game.
“You’re a real man, Deion,” McCarver sarcastically said. “You’re a real man.”
I was glad McCarver stuck up for himself.
McCarver had a lot going for him in the TV booth. As a former catcher, he saw the game from an expert’s perspective. That enabled him to provide sharp analysis. The most famous example was his setup of the game-winning hit in the 2001 World Series. The Diamondbacks had the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7, with the score tied 2-2, and the Yankees’ infield was pulled in.
Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer in big-league history, was on the mound. On the Fox telecast, McCarver adroitly pointed out that Rivera’s cut fastball broke inside to left-handed batters, often leading to broken-bat hits. Sure enough, on the next pitch, Luis Gonzalez broke his bat on an inside pitch and the ball blooped over the drawn-in infield to win the World Series for Arizona.
Play-by-play announcer Joe Buck, who was in the booth with McCarver at the time, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “I would submit to you and I would bring it to any committee if they said, ‘What’s the best example of first-guessing in the history of sports broadcasting? I defy anybody to tell any analyst who has ever nailed a moment better than that in a key situation — Game 7 on the last pitch with Mariano Rivera blowing a World Series save. That’s just not going to happen.”
McCarver played in parts of 21 seasons. He made his Cardinals debut in 1959 at age 17. He played his last game for Philadelphia in 1980, just 10 days shy of his 39th birthday. In 2012 he was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame with its Ford C. Frick Award, granted annually for broadcasting excellence.
Rest in peace Tim McCarver, you had a great baseball life.
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