Tim McCarver, All-Star catcher and broadcaster, dies at 81
New York, The Gulf Observer: Tim McCarver, the All-Star catcher and Hall of Fame broadcaster who during 60 years in baseball won two World Series titles with the St. Louis Cardinals and had a long run as one of the country’s most recognized, incisive and talkative television commentators, died Thursday. He was 81.
McCarver’s death was announced by baseball’s Hall of Fame, which said he died Thursday morning due to heart failure in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was with his family.
Among the few players to appear in major league games during four decades, McCarver was a two-time All Star who worked closely with two future Hall of Fame pitchers: The tempestuous Bob Gibson, whom McCarver caught for St. Louis in the 1960s, and the introverted Steve Carlton, McCarver’s fellow Cardinal in the ’60s and a Philadelphia Phillies teammate in the 1970s.
He switched to television soon after retiring in 1980 and called 24 World Series for ABC, CBS and Fox, a record for a baseball analyst on television.
“I think there is a natural bridge from being a catcher to talking about the view of the game and the view of the other players,” McCarver told the Hall in 2012, the year he was given the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting. “It is translating that for the viewers. One of the hard things about television is staying contemporary and keeping it simple for the viewers.”
After retiring from Fox’s national broadcasts, McCarver announced part-time for Fox Sports Midwest and worked the occasional Cardinals game before sitting out the 2020 season because of concerns about COVID-19. Besides the Frick award, he was inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame, in 2017.
“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. The game has a way of keeping you honest. I never played in another World Series.”
McCarver is survived by his daughters Kathy and Kelley, and grandchildren Leigh and Beau.
