Tim Mccarver Cause of Death: He Dies at 81

Tim McCarver, an All-Star catcher and Hall of Fame broadcaster who spent 60 years playing baseball and two World Series championships with the St. Louis Cardinals, passed away on Thursday. McCarver was also known for his sharp wit and chatty personality on television. He was 81. Baseball’s Hall of Fame announced McCarver’s passing, stating that he passed away on Thursday morning in Memphis, Tennessee, while he was visiting his family, from heart failure.

McCarver was a two-time All-Star and one of the few players to play in major league games over four decades. He collaborated with two pitchers who would go on to become Hall of Famers: the fiery Bob Gibson, who McCarver caught for St. Louis in the 1960s, and the quiet Steve Carlton, who was a fellow Cardinal in the ’60s and a teammate of McCarver’s with the Philadelphia Phillies in the ’70s.

Soon after his retirement in 1980, he made the jump to television and called 24 World Series for ABC, CBS, and Fox, setting a record for a baseball analyst on television. In 2012, the year he and Joe Buck received the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting, McCarver told the Hall of Fame, “I think there is a natural bridge between talking about the view of the game and the view of the other players.” “It is being translated for the audience. Keeping television current and user-friendly is one of the challenging aspects of the medium.

McCarver’s 18-year collaboration with play-by-play commentator Buck on Fox helped him establish his reputation among general audiences. When Fox started airing baseball in 1996, McCarver moved there. In 2013, he called his final World Series. As Buck remarked on Thursday, “I learned fairly fast that if you were in his inner circle, he would be a ferocious defender of you and for you.”

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Because he had endured criticism during his whole broadcasting career, he taught me how to handle it. And occasionally it was because he taught the game. He told a national audience if a player or manager wasn’t managing or playing the way he thought the game should be played. The following morning, he was always the first person in the clubhouse. It was fair, and he would respond if the other person had something to say in return. In addition to teaching me a lot about the game, he also taught me how to broadcast on a national scale, possibly even more.

McCarver was “a respected teammate and one of the most prominent voices our game has known,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. McCarver, a six-foot-tall, muscular Memphis native whose father was a police officer, got into a lot of fights when he was younger but otherwise enjoyed playing football and baseball and imitating prominent broadcasters, particularly Harry Caray of the Cardinals.

He was signed by the Cardinals while still in high school for $75,000, which was a significant deal at the time. He was only 17 when he made his MLB debut for them in 1959 and his early 20s when he took over as the primary catcher. McCarver went to segregated schools in Memphis and frequently talked about the education he obtained in St. Louis as an immigrant.

Gibson and outfielder Curt Flood were two of his colleagues who did not hold back when confronting or making fun of McCarver. During spring training, McCarver allegedly hurled racial slurs against a Black boy who was attempting to scale a fence, and Gibson recalled “getting right up in McCarver’s face.” Gibson had once asked McCarver for some orange soda on a hot spring training day and then laughed when he flinched, according to a tale McCarver liked to tell.

In his 1987 biography “Oh, Baby, I Love It!” McCarver stated that “Gibby was probably more than any other Black man who helped me to transcend whatever underlying prejudices I may have had.” In the 1960s, there weren’t many good catchers, but McCarver hit.270 or better for five straight years and was quick enough to become the first player in his position to lead the league in triples.

His best season came in 1967 when he hit.295 with 14 home runs and finished second to teammate Orlando Cepeda for the NL Most Valuable Player as the Cardinals captured their second World Series in four years. In 1965, when Carlton was a rookie and had “an independent streak bigger than the Grand Canyon,” McCarver met the left-hander.  When both were traded to Philadelphia in the 1970s, the two, who had initially fought and even quarreled on the mound during games, grew closer and were reunited.

Even though he admittedly had a below-average throwing arm and otherwise didn’t match up defensively to the Phillies’ usual catcher, Gold Glover Bob Boone, McCarver was named Carlton’s designated catcher. Tim McCarver, according to Carlton, is the man who stands behind every good pitcher, who remarked during his Hall of Fame acceptance speech in 1994. I was made to pitch inside by Timmy.

I was reluctant to pitch inside early in my career. Timmy knew how to fix this. He used to position himself behind the batter. I was compelled to pitch inside because there was only the umpire present and I was unable to see McCarver. The pitching rubber’s distance from home plate is 60 feet, 6 inches, and McCarver loved to joke that he and Carlton were so in synch on the field that when both were dead, they would be buried there.

McCarver had a 21-year career and had brief appearances for the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos. He batted.271 and never struck out more than 40 times in a season twice. He had his best performance in the 1964 World Series when the Cardinals upset the New York Yankees in seven games, and he averaged.273 in the postseason. In the 10th inning of Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, McCarver’s 3-run home run earned his team a 5-2 victory. He ended the game 11 for 23 with five walks.

His career as a broadcaster for local games for the New York Mets, Yankees, Phillies, and San Francisco, as Jack Buck’s partner on CBS (1990–91), or with his son Joe Buck for Fox from 1996–2013, is where younger baseball fans first became familiar with him. Tim McCarver has written several books, appeared in cameos in “Naked Gun,” “Love Hurts,” and other films, received six Emmys, and even released an album called “Tim McCarver Sings Songs from the Great American Songbook.”

According to Fox Sports President and executive producer Eric Shanks, “To a generation of fans, Tim will forever be known as the champion whose game-winning home run during the 1964 World Series echoes throughout time.” “To another, his voice will always serve as the background music to some of the most enduring scenes from the game’s past. He will always hold a special place in our hearts.

He was known for his knowledge. He enjoyed reading, going to libraries, and memorizing poetry in his free time. He spent hours prepping for every game and was like a one-man scouting team at work, knowing every little nuance. He appeared to have telepathic abilities at times. With the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series between the Yankees and Diamondbacks, New York pulled in its infield.

The score was knotted at 2. Luis Rodriquez was in front of Mariano Rivera. McCarver noted that Rivera “throws inside against left-handers.” “The shallow area of the outfield receives a lot of broken-bat hits from left-handers. With a pitcher like Rivera on the mound, that is the risk of bringing in the infield.

Gonzalez later scored the winning run with a bloop to short center field. When you take into account the urgency of the situation, the amount of time he had to pronounce it, and its accuracy, ESPN’s Keith Olbermann said in 2002 that the call was “the sports-announcing equivalent of Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the seventh inning to defeat the Yankees in 1960.”

Several people enjoyed and learned from McCarver. Others found him to be irritable. When discussing baseball strategy or criticizing someone’s performance on the field, McCarver did not cut himself off. When you ask him the time, Norm Chad of Sports Illustrated observed, “(he) will tell you how a watch works.” The same year, a Falcon’s defensive back and outfielder for Atlanta threw a bucket of water on him after he criticized Deion Sanders for competing in two sports on the same day. After 16 seasons on the radio, the Mets fired McCarver in 1999.

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In a statement, the Mets claimed that McCarver provided them with a perceptive, amusing, and educated view inside the game’s backroom operations. Soon after the Mets fired him, McCarver told the Times that “some broadcasters assume that their job is to the club and the team only.” “I’ve never considered that. I owe the people watching the game my highest duty. And I’ve always believed that praise loses its meaning when there isn’t honest criticism. Every intelligent individual, in my opinion, can understand it.

Before skipping the 2020 season due to worries about COVID-19, McCarver announced his retirement from Fox’s national broadcasts, worked part-time for Fox Sports Midwest, and occasionally broadcast Cardinals games. In addition to receiving the Frick Award, he was also enshrined in the Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2017.

He added in his winning speech, “Oh this is wonderful, practically a World Series every year. By the time I was 26, I had played in three World Series. “Uh-uh. You can be kept honest by the game in some way. I didn’t participate in another World Series. Kathy, Kelley, Leigh, and Beau, McCarver’s grandchildren, survive him.

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