Born James Timothy McCarver on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee, few would have ever dreamt up the life McCarver would go on to live. That life included winning two World Series as a player and calling 23 more as a broadcaster, a record at the time of his retirement. With a career in baseball stretching over four decades, it is only fitting that McCarver eventually found his way into a role with the most successful baseball organization of all time.
James Timothy McCarver
Born: October 16, 1941 (Memphis, TN) Died: February 16, 2023 (Memphis, TN) Yankees Tenure: 1999-2001 (broadcaster)
Memphis was home for McCarver, and he attended Christian Brothers High School. While growing up, he played baseball, basketball, and football. McCarver was good enough at football to earn scholarship interest from Tennessee and Notre Dame. However, the 17-year-old turned down college to sign a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1959. The Yankees were also interested in him before the Cardinals were able to ink the deal.
The Cardinals did not handle the young catcher with kid gloves. After the young left-handed hitter posted a .360 average over 275 at-bats in the Midwest League, he was promoted to Triple-A Rochester of the International League. The kid then hit .357 in 70 at-bats. The Cardinals were impressed enough that they made the 17-year-old a September call-up. In a small sample size, he collected four hits in 24 at-bats while being about 11 years younger than the average player in the league.
Knowing that the prospect needed more seasoning, the Cardinals assigned McCarver to their Double-A team in Memphis to start the 1960 season. He batted .347 there and earned another late-season call-up to the big league club. He spent much of 1961 in the minors before another promotion to St. Louis, but 1962 was different. McCarver spent the entire season with the Triple-A Atlanta Crackers, getting one last year of development before sticking with the Cardinals for good.
McCarver was done with the minors after a trade opened up the starting catcher position for him in 1963. In his first full season in the show, McCarver slashed .289/.333/.383 while starting 108 games behind the dish. He followed that up in 1964 with another impressive slash line of .288/.343/.400 as the Cardinals won the National League pennant.
The Fall Classic that year featured the Yankees. McCarver burned New York, hitting .478 with 11 hits in 23 at-bats. He also drove in five runs and scored four more, including a three-run homer in the top of the 10th inning of Game 5 that helped the Cardinals secure a 5-2 victory. St. Louis won the series in seven games, and McCarver stole home in Game 7 to help secure the championship.
That performance kicked off the best run of McCarver’s career. He made his only two All-Star teams during the 1966 and 1967 seasons. The Cardinals won the pennant again in 1967, and though McCarver did not perform as well as he had against the Yankees, he helped his team beat the Red Sox in seven games. St. Louis reached the World Series again in 1968, but this time fell to the Tigers in seven games.
The summer of 1969 marked the end of McCarver’s first run as a Cardinal, as he was dealt to the Philadelphia Phillies after the season. This kicked off a two-and-a-half-year run before the Phillies traded McCarver to the Expos midway through the 1972 season. Following that brief stint north of the border, he was traded back to St. Louis for the 1973 season. He appeared in 130 games, with 77 of them at first base instead of behind the plate.
A full-fledged journeyman by this point, McCarver started the 1974 season under the Arch in St. Louis before being purchased by the Red Sox. In 1974 and 1975, McCarver appeared in 23 games for Boston before being released. After his release from Beantown, McCarver signed back with the Phillies, where he would ride out the last six years of his career as a backup catcher and left-handed pinch hitter off the bench.
In 1980, McCarver started a new job in the Phillies’ broadcast booth while still playing for the club. He returned to the field that September to help the team finish out the season. Then, after 21 seasons, McCarver finally hung up his cleats for good. However, the microphone he picked up decided to stick around.
Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, McCarver called games for the Phillies and Mets. During this time, his talent in the booth earned him national broadcasts as well. McCarver called his first World Series in 1985 and went on to set a record for World Series broadcasts by a color analyst. McCarver won three national Emmy Awards for his work as a sportscaster and co-hosted the primetime coverage of the 1992 Winter Olympics alongside Paula Zahn.
McCarver finally got to the Yankees in 1999 as a commentator for the team’s local broadcasts. Just like in his playing days, McCarver got to experience the Yankees winning two rings as the team was on the back end of its late-1990s dynasty. Perhaps his most famous call came when he was in the booth with Bobby Murcer and Suzyn Waldman for David Cone’s improbable perfect game on Yogi Berra Day in 1999.
In what many have called prophecy, he also suggested that bringing the infield in during the 2001 World Series might be the wrong call. We all remember how that went moments later.
After his Yankees stint ended, McCarver moved to San Francisco to keep calling games for the Giants. He remained a full-time national broadcaster, working All-Star Games and World Series alongside Joe Buck until retiring from Fox in 2013. The year before he retired, he was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame for his long career in television when he won the 2012 Ford C. Frick Award.
McCarver continued working part-time with the Cardinals, calling around 30 games a year. He stepped away from those broadcasts after the 2019 season, though he did not officially retire until 2022. In case you lost count, McCarver played parts of 21 seasons in the majors and spent more than 30 years in the broadcast booth. He passed away in February 2023.
Happy birthday, Tim!
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.
