A Son of Memphis
James Timothy McCarver was born in Memphis on Oct. 16, 1941, one of five children, and grew up in a tough neighborhood where his Roman Catholic family was a minority. His father, G.E. McCarver, known as Ed, was a Memphis police officer who became a private detective. His mother, Alice, was a religious woman who, McCarver recalled in “Oh Baby, I Love It!,” lived vicariously through his athletic exploits and “used to make the sign of the cross on my back before I went out to play ball.”
A multisport star at Christian Brothers Academy in Memphis, a segregated school, he was recruited by football powerhouses like Notre Dame, Alabama and Tennessee. But he was also pursued by the Cardinals, the Giants and the Yankees, and he decided to play baseball because it offered him the chance to earn money right away.
He signed with the Cards for $75,000 and was just 17 years old when he began his professional career in the low minor leagues, in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1959. That September he played his first big-league games. He started each of the next two seasons in the minors, appearing briefly with the Cardinals in September. By 1963, however, he was the team’s starting catcher.
McCarver married Anne McDaniel, whom he had met in high school, in 1964. The marriage ended in divorce. They had two daughters, Kelly and Kathy, who survive him, as do two grandchildren. His four siblings died before him.
Over the years, McCarver’s prominence offered him other opportunities. Beyond his game-day appearances, he was host of “The Tim McCarver Show,” a long-running program, first on radio and later on television, in which he interviewed athletes and other sports celebrities. He was a co-anchor, with Paula Zahn, of the 1992 Winter Olympics for CBS.
Source: NY Times
