(Updated Sept. 10, 2018)
When Tim McCarver was inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame on Aug. 26, 2017, it capped a remarkable career that began more than 50 years earlier with the Cardinals.
McCarver was a standout athlete at Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, receiving football scholarship offers from schools such as Notre Dame, Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, but professional baseball offered an immediate opportunity to earn an income.
“Money was the deciding factor, plain and simple,” McCarver said in his 1987 book “Oh, Baby, I Love It.”
The best baseball offers came from the Yankees, Giants and Cardinals. The scout trying to sign McCarver for the Yankees was Bill Dickey, a Hall of Fame catcher. However, St. Louis’ offer of a $75,000 signing bonus and a guaranteed annual salary of $6,000 per year for five years convinced McCarver and his parents he should join the Cardinals.
McCarver signed in June 1959 and was sent to the Cardinals’ Class D minor-league affiliate at Keokuk (Iowa) of the Midwest League. Unfazed by professional pitching, McCarver hit .360 in 65 games. He committed 14 errors.
When Rochester (N.Y.) catcher Dick Rand dislocated a right index finger, McCarver was promoted to the Class AAA International League club to replace him. He hit .357 for Rochester in 17 games and made no errors.
In September 1959, three months after he had graduated from high school, McCarver, 17, was promoted to the Cardinals and joined the team in Milwaukee.
“When I arrived at the Cards’ team bus for the first time, I was nervous enough,” McCarver said. “I didn’t know these guys and I wanted to impress them.”
On Sept. 10, 1959, his first day in a big-league uniform, McCarver marveled from the dugout at being in the presence of two of his boyhood heroes, Stan Musial of the Cardinals and Hank Aaron of the Braves.
“So when Hank came to bat for the first time that day,” McCarver said, “I leaped from my perch in the Cardinals’ dugout and did what I always did when I listened to the Braves play the Cardinals. ‘Come on, Henry,’ I yelled. ‘Come on, Henry.’ The action seemed natural to me, but some of my teammates weren’t amused.”
In the ninth inning, with two outs, Bill White on second base and the Cardinals trailing by three, manager Solly Hemus sent McCarver to make his major-league debut as a pinch-hitter for pitcher Marshall Bridges.
“So there I was, younger than Musial’s own son, picking up a bat and advancing to the plate,” McCarver said. “As I stepped in to face Don McMahon, a veteran right-handed relief pitcher with a commanding fastball, my knees literally shook with fear.”
Quickly, McMahon got two strikes on McCarver. Then the teen swung at a curveball and lifted it to right field, where the game-ending catch was made by none other than Hank Aaron. Boxscore
The next day, Sept. 11, 1959, at Chicago against the Cubs, McCarver got his first big-league start at catcher. Batting in the No. 2 spot, he went 0-for-4 against Bob Anderson. The Cardinals’ starting pitcher was Bob Miller, 20. According to The Sporting News, Miller and McCarver formed the youngest battery in big-league history. Boxscore
To put that into comparative perspective, the combined ages of McCarver and Miller (37) were younger than the individual ages of two of their teammates, Musial (38) and George Crowe (38).
On Sept. 13, 1959, McCarver, batting leadoff, opened the game with his first big-league hit, a single against the Cubs’ Glen Hobbie. Boxscore
McCarver played in eight games for the 1959 Cardinals, hitting .167 (4-for-24).
Described by The Sporting News as “one of the finest catching prospects the Cardinals have brought up in many years,” McCarver had stints with St. Louis in 1960 and 1961, then spent all of 1962 in the minor leagues before earning the Cardinals’ starting catcher job in 1963.
In his 1991 book “On the Run,” speedster Maury Wills said Johnny Roseboro of the Dodgers and McCarver were the toughest catchers he saw during his playing career.
Previously: Tim McCarver: third Cards catcher to be named broadcasting’s best
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