Tim McCarver, 1941-2023

Tim McCarver was one of the smartest men in baseball. All you had to do was ask him.

Alas, we can no longer do that.

James Timothy McCarver was born on October 16, 1941 in Memphis, Tennessee. Like James Paul McCartney Jr., born 8 months later, this James was best known by his middle name. He played from 1959 to 1980, and is the only baseball player to be thrown out of major league games in 4 different decades.

But he was also the catcher on the 1964 and '67 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, and Steve Carlton's "personal catcher" on the Philadelphia Phillies. He had also caught Carlton on the '67 Cards, and once joked that he and Steve will be buried 60 feet, 6 inches apart. Although he did not play in the 1980 postseason, and in fact served as a Phils broadcaster during the NLCS, he received a World Series ring when the Phils won.

But he is best known as a broadcaster, for the Mets, including their 1986 World Championship season; the Yankees, including their 1999 and 2000 World Championship seasons; and several networks, and has been awarded the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford Frick Award for broadcasters. He also wrote several books about baseball, and is a member of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame.

The weird thing about McCarver is that the ballpark in his hometown, which served as the home of a series of Memphis teams from 1968 to 1999, was renamed Tim McCarver Stadium in 1978, while he was not only still alive, but still active in baseball. It has since been replaced by a more modern facility, and was demolished in 2005. Like Helen Hayes with the 1st Broadway theater named for her, McCarver outlived the "playhouse" named for him.

No wonder that, when James Timothy McCarver joined James Paul McCartney Jr. as a recording artist, and recorded Tim McCarver Sings Songs from the Great American Songbook in 2009, one of the songs he chose was the one that Joe Raposo wrote about Ebbets Field for Frank Sinatra: "There Used to Be a Ballpark."

He married Anne McDaniel, his high school sweetheart, in 1964, although it ended in divorce. They had 2 daughters, Kelly and Kathy, and 2 grandchildren.

He died today, February 16, 2023, of heart failure in his hometown of Memphis. He was 81 years old.

With his death, there are now 14 surviving players from the 1964 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals: Roger Craig, Dick Groat, Bob Skinner, Mike Shannon, Julián Javier, Dal Maxvill, Bill White, Carl Warwick, Gordie Richardson, Ray Washburn, Ron Taylor, Charlie James, Bob Humphreys and Bob Uecker.

And there are 11 surviving players from the 1967 World Champion Cardinals: Shannon, Javier, Maxville, Washburn, Orlando Cepeda, Steve Carlton, Eddie Bressoud, Bobby Tolan, Ed Spiezio, Dick Hughes and Larry Jaster.