Tim McCarver, known as the cerebral St. Louis Cardinals catcher and then baseball broadcaster, has died. He was 81.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced McCarver’s death Thursday morning. He died in Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at his side. His cause of death was uncertain.
“First as a player and later as a broadcaster, McCarver – over and over again – wrote his name into the game’s history book,” the Hall of Fame said.
The St. Louis Cardinals tweeted a tribute to McCarver.
During McCarver’s 60 years in baseball, he won two World Series Championships with the St. Louis Cardinals. After 40 years behind the plate, he took up a career in sports broadcasting, calling games on Fox, ABC and CBS.
The two-time All Star caught for Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton in the ’60s for the Cardinals. He and Carlton also played for the Philadelphia Phillies in the ’70s.
After he retired from the field in 1980, he switched to television, broadcasting for 18 years on Fox with Jack Buck, who called play-by-play.
“Tim McCarver was an All-Star, a World Series Champion, a respected teammate, and one of the most influential voices our game has known,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “As a player, Tim was a key part of great Cardinals and Phillies teams in his 21-year career. In the booth, his analysis and attention to detail brought fans closer to our game and how it is played and managed. Tim’s approach enhanced the fan experience on our biggest stages and on the broadcasts of the Mets, the Yankees and the Cardinals.”
The son of a policeman, McCarver hailed from Memphis, where he attended segregated schools. His Black teammates Gibson and Curt Flood challenged his views on race on the field. McCarver always shared a story of Gibson asking to take a sip of his orange soda.
“It was probably Gibby more than any other Black man who helped me to overcome whatever latent prejudices I may have had,” he wrote in his 1987 memoir “Oh, Baby, I Love It!”
