‘INFLUENTIAL VOICE’
Hall of Fame broadcaster called 24 World Series and won two as Cardinals catcher
NEW YORK — Tim McCarver, the AllStar catcher and Hall of Fame broadcaster who during 60 years in baseball won two World Series titles with the 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 Phillies teammate in the ’70s.
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.
McCarver became best known to national audiences for his 18year partnership on Fox with play-by-play man Joe Buck. McCarver moved to Fox in 1996 when it began televising baseball and called his final World Series in 2013.
“I learned really fast that if you were in his inner circle, he would be a fierce defender of you and for you,” Buck said Thursday. “He taught me how to deal with criticism because he had been criticized, his whole broadcast career.”
Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement that McCarver was “a respected teammate and one of the most influential voices our game has known.”
McCarver, who in the 1960s was an early and prominent union activist, was praised Thursday by Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark for his “lead role” in the union’s formation.
During a 21-year career, McCarver batted .271 and only twice struck out more than 40 times in a season.