ST. LOUIS — He had a stellar baseball career, a bulldog of a catcher who won two World Series with the Cardinals in the 1960s and played in three. He had an even more decorated run after his playing days ended, an unparalleled marathon as a network television analyst on the sport’s biggest stage before finishing with a stint in the Cards' TV booth.
Tim McCarver, the man from Memphis whose touch of a Southern accent was a lifelong trademark, died there Thursday morning of heart failure. He was 81 and his passing was announced by the Baseball Hall of Fame, in which he was a member as a broadcaster.
McCarver had a record 34-year stretch of broadcasting big league baseball at the highest level. He called 24 of the 29 World Series from 1985-2013, across three networks, wrapping up the unprecedented run with 14 in a row. In one stretch, he called postseason contests for 29 consecutive years. He also did 22 All-Star games, another record for an analyst.
