Thanks, Joe, for reminding me of how great Tim was in the booth for so many years. Love of the game made him stay too long--and the big paychecks. Not so different from the players he covered.
"Even the best of the best...start to repeat themselves" The Mets are blessed with Gary Cohen, but when you watch upwards of 120+ games a year like I do, you do realize how often he repeats himself.
Thanks Joe for a beautiful piece on Tim McCarver. As a Mets fan of a certain age, McCarver's time at WWOR was special. He rejuvenated a booth that has long been better than the team the Mets put on the field, or the vision of its owners, and even now has best duo in all sports in Gary Cohen & Ron Darling. McCarver taught a graduate level baseball course every game, with humor, kindness and extraordinary love of the game and its great players. The Mets' tagline during that era was "baseball like it ought to be." It always was with McCarver. His loss hits hard in that way. Thank you Tim, and I hope they let you catch Bob Gibson once in a while when you aren't calling games in the hereafter.
Check out Darwin on the Astros team page for 1989-1990 on baseball-reference.com. Sure looks like him. Good work, Sherlock…I think you solved the case!
I endorse what Vaccaro said, except I never had Showalter as a coach, so McCarver was probably more than 33.3%.
As a Mets fan in the '80s, I loved him, and I never understood the hate he got. But of course, his national profile rose later than that, and his best days weren't shared outside the reaches of WOR-TV. I guess he probably wasn't quite as good in national games anyway, since part of his greatness was great familiarity with the Mets players and their strengths & weaknesses, as well as a good rapport with his boothmates. On national broadcasts, I suspect he leaned a bit on superficial knowledge of players and making his personality bigger to compensate for reduced rapport.
I really enjoyed his last couple of years as a part-time analyst for the Cardinals. It was obvious he didn't feel the pressure of New York or the national stage. We were able to have the best of his knowledge without any attempt at fluff.
His playoff broadcasts annoyed me because he so frequently worked waaaaaay too hard to come across as clever, and he announced the game as if most of the viewers were watching their very first playoff games.
Then I'd hear him calling a regular season Cardinal games and he'd be relaxed, laid-back, and awesome.
grew up in St Louis area, Tim McCarver was a "player" from my youth....loved discovering him years later on broadcasts. This was a lovely tribute, balanced and fair. Thanks for sharing. He might have hung on for 'too long', but he had a solid decade and a half, for sure, if not more, calling the game he wanted us all to love as he did.
I think Joe had it right in the end. My view of McCarver was always based on how arrogant and insufferable he became at the end. (And probably because, along with Joe Buck, the two fed off one each others insufferable & arrogant comments). There definitely was the earlier part of his career when he offered a lot great insight that we weren't getting anywhere else. I don't think there was much of an attempt to be insightful before McCarver. Like a lot of famous people, it's always better to remember them from their primes, and not what they became at the end.
I feel like I’ve attended a wake where 90% of the people cried and were telling great stories about the departed while the other 10% loudly complained that he couldn’t speak French or that his lawn looked terrible.
I enjoyed Mr. McCarver’s work and, like many others, feel like I learned a lot from him, even though I was an expert based on my considerable experience as the worst player on my Little League team. He was a terrific analyst and will be missed.
Some of Carlton’s weaker years with the Phillies were when the Phillies traded McCarver away in the early 70s. Carlton came back strong once McCarver returned and again became his personal catcher. I wonder if there is an easy way on StatHead to compute pitcher’s performance with certain battery mates.
Thanks, Joe, for reminding me of how great Tim was in the booth for so many years. Love of the game made him stay too long--and the big paychecks. Not so different from the players he covered.
"Even the best of the best...start to repeat themselves" The Mets are blessed with Gary Cohen, but when you watch upwards of 120+ games a year like I do, you do realize how often he repeats himself.
Thanks Joe for a beautiful piece on Tim McCarver. As a Mets fan of a certain age, McCarver's time at WWOR was special. He rejuvenated a booth that has long been better than the team the Mets put on the field, or the vision of its owners, and even now has best duo in all sports in Gary Cohen & Ron Darling. McCarver taught a graduate level baseball course every game, with humor, kindness and extraordinary love of the game and its great players. The Mets' tagline during that era was "baseball like it ought to be." It always was with McCarver. His loss hits hard in that way. Thank you Tim, and I hope they let you catch Bob Gibson once in a while when you aren't calling games in the hereafter.
Pretty excited that an excellent baseball writer like Pete Caldera liked my comment.
Check out Darwin on the Astros team page for 1989-1990 on baseball-reference.com. Sure looks like him. Good work, Sherlock…I think you solved the case!
I endorse what Vaccaro said, except I never had Showalter as a coach, so McCarver was probably more than 33.3%.
As a Mets fan in the '80s, I loved him, and I never understood the hate he got. But of course, his national profile rose later than that, and his best days weren't shared outside the reaches of WOR-TV. I guess he probably wasn't quite as good in national games anyway, since part of his greatness was great familiarity with the Mets players and their strengths & weaknesses, as well as a good rapport with his boothmates. On national broadcasts, I suspect he leaned a bit on superficial knowledge of players and making his personality bigger to compensate for reduced rapport.
I really enjoyed his last couple of years as a part-time analyst for the Cardinals. It was obvious he didn't feel the pressure of New York or the national stage. We were able to have the best of his knowledge without any attempt at fluff.
absolutely perfect, your memorialising McCarver - perfect
His playoff broadcasts annoyed me because he so frequently worked waaaaaay too hard to come across as clever, and he announced the game as if most of the viewers were watching their very first playoff games.
Then I'd hear him calling a regular season Cardinal games and he'd be relaxed, laid-back, and awesome.
Is that Alan Ashby being interviewed by Tim?
I’m way too curious about this now. I found the picture on the Getty images site here:
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/broadcaster-and-former-baseball-player-tim-mccarver-talks-news-photo/543937644
The description says the picture is circa 1990. Assuming that’s accurate:
Alan Ashby retired after the 1989 season.
Dickie Thon left Houston as a free agent after the 1987 season.
Denny Walling was traded by the Astros to the Cardinals mid-season in 1988.
Glenn Davis was traded to the Orioles after the 1990 season.
Can we safely rule out Ken Oberkfell and Danny Darwin?
that's my first thought too, although the mustache could be Dickie Thon too, but I think Thon had darker hair.
Does Sarah Langs know?
Ashby or Glenn Davis?
Maybe Denny Walling
grew up in St Louis area, Tim McCarver was a "player" from my youth....loved discovering him years later on broadcasts. This was a lovely tribute, balanced and fair. Thanks for sharing. He might have hung on for 'too long', but he had a solid decade and a half, for sure, if not more, calling the game he wanted us all to love as he did.
Surely. Whitey not a mental giant.
It wasn’t just a ‘coworker’, they were close friends for 50 years
I think Joe had it right in the end. My view of McCarver was always based on how arrogant and insufferable he became at the end. (And probably because, along with Joe Buck, the two fed off one each others insufferable & arrogant comments). There definitely was the earlier part of his career when he offered a lot great insight that we weren't getting anywhere else. I don't think there was much of an attempt to be insightful before McCarver. Like a lot of famous people, it's always better to remember them from their primes, and not what they became at the end.
I agree, McCarver and Buck almost ruined the game for me. But that was towards the end of his broadcasting career.
I feel like I’ve attended a wake where 90% of the people cried and were telling great stories about the departed while the other 10% loudly complained that he couldn’t speak French or that his lawn looked terrible.
I enjoyed Mr. McCarver’s work and, like many others, feel like I learned a lot from him, even though I was an expert based on my considerable experience as the worst player on my Little League team. He was a terrific analyst and will be missed.
Roger Angell (another great recent loss) wrote a really wonderful appreciation of McCarver entitled “The Bard in the Booth.” Well worth searching out.
I wish that all of his baseball essays were published as a single compilation. No one was, or ever will be, better than Roger Angell.
Some of Carlton’s weaker years with the Phillies were when the Phillies traded McCarver away in the early 70s. Carlton came back strong once McCarver returned and again became his personal catcher. I wonder if there is an easy way on StatHead to compute pitcher’s performance with certain battery mates.