McCarthy joins Mets radio booth for 2023 sesaon
Pat McCarthy’s earliest baseball memories were trips to the old Shea Stadium to watch the Mets play while his father worked as a broadcaster for the team.
So then it’s fitting that McCarthy’s first full-time call to the big leagues brings him back to Queens.
McCarthy officially signed on to work as the pre and postgame host, along with providing playby-play for select games, for Mets broadcasts on WCBS 880 this season.
“It’s exciting,” McCarthy said on Monday. “It’s a great organization that is in a position to compete and hopefully win a World Series title.”
McCarthy will be paired with Howie Rose, the legendary voice of the Mets, and another newcomer, Keith Raad, who will sit in the number two chair next to Rose.
The McCarthy name is synonymous with the soundtrack of baseball in the Delaware Valley. His father, Tom, has been the voice of the Phillies since 2008 and Pat had been with the organization since his senior year of college at The College of New Jersey.
McCarthy spent the last five years as the play-byplay voice of the TripleA Lehigh Valley IronPigs and got a cup of coffee in the majors as fill in on radio and TV for the Phillies.
“It starts with how they kind of let me experience what it was like to be an intern in the minors in 2017 whether that was cooking hot dogs, restocking the fridge or running vegetable races in Reading,” said McCarthy, who cites former MiLB broadcast partners Mike Ventola and Gregg Caserta for helping him find his voice. “It gave me that full minor league experience. How it prepared me the most is it allowed me to appreciate how much goes into getting to this position and getting to this spot.”
While broadcasting may be in his blood, it wasn’t what McCarthy always wanted to do. He wanted to be a history teacher — his true passion he calls it — but that began to change after he hosted A-Town Live, the morning news program at Allentown High.
“It was probably when I was around 17 or so I started to have that ahha moment that this is really cool,” McCarthy said. “I started to appreciate all the things my dad had done for us in his time broadcasting. At that point, you start to realize this is really special and it could be really cool to do full-time.”
It helps that McCarthy is a natural and one of the rising stars in the business. He quickly moved through the minor league ranks — he started at Double-A Reading while he was still a senior at TCNJ — and worked a handful of Phillies games last season, including with his father during the final regular-season series in Houston as the Phillies clinched a playoff berth. He also calls Princeton University basketball games in the winter.
While his father has no doubt been a huge influence and mentor, McCarthy has tried to carve out his own unique style.
“Those that listen to me know that I have so much of my dad in me, but at the same time I do my best to be an individual and be myself,” he said. “Although we have very similar cadences and how we call a game is similar, we have very different voices. I just try and be myself and if being myself part of my dad comes out that’s great.
“I am who I am because of him. If that’s how it comes across if you hear
some of him in me I take that as the ultimate compliment. To me, he is the guy I have looked up to, he’s the guy I have idolized my entire life.”
But what about trading the red and white pinstripes for the blue and orange of a division rival?
“This team is set up to make a run,” McCarthy said. “The big acquisitions with (Kodai) Senga and (Justin) Verlander and (Jose) Quintana to bolster the rotation around Max Scherzer. When you talk about losing a guy like Jacob
deGrom and you fill that with the reigning Cy Young Award winner and one of the highest prized international free agencies in the last decade it’s an exciting time. You pair that with terrific additions of the bullpen and you got (Edwin) Diaz at the backend already.
“I think the National League East is set up for any of these three teams. All will likely make the playoffs with the new expanded format and any one of them can win the division. It’s going to be a lot of fun in September and October
watching them battle it out.”
With spring training around the corner, McCarthy is already packing for Port St. Lucie.
He’s coming to big league airwaves near you.
“(My dad) tells me every single day to be myself, be authentic and have fun doing it,” McCarthy said. “At the end of the day, the number one advice he gives me is to treat people right. Being a great broadcaster is great and all, but being a better person is even better.”