(Updated Sept. 10, 2019)
In the 1950s, Tim McCarver was a standout athlete at Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, receiving football scholarship offers from schools such as Notre Dame, Tennessee and Alabama, but professional baseball offered an immediate opportunity to earn an income for the catching prospect.
“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. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dickey said McCarver is “a Yankees-type player” and told him, “We want you, Tim.”
“They were my No. 2 and a very close No. 2 to the Cardinals,” McCarver said to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
McCarver said the Yankees offered a $60,000 signing bonus and Dickey told him, “If you sign with the Yanks, I’ll take you along with me on a two-week fishing trip. We’ll talk about catching inside and out.”
However, the Cardinals’ offer of a $75,000 signing bonus and a guaranteed annual salary of $6,000 per year for five years convinced McCarver he should sign with them.
“I think I was swayed by the fact the Cardinals were only 290 miles away (from Memphis),” McCarver said to the Commercial Appeal. “That influenced me somewhat. Also, the Cardinals had given me a take-it-or-leave-it deal and that scared me to death. I was 17 years old.”
Super scout
With his parents in attendance, along with Cardinals farm director Walter Shannon and scout Buddy Lewis, McCarver signed the contract at his Memphis home on June 8, 1959. The $75,000 bonus was the largest given by the Cardinals, according to the Post-Dispatch.
The Cardinals “outbid at least nine other clubs for McCarver, whose high school batting average was .412,” the Post-Dispatch reported. McCarver also hit .390 for an American Legion team which won state and regional championships.
Lewis, a former big-league catcher for the Cardinals and Braves, scouted McCarver for four years and said, “Tim is the best young catcher I’ve ever seen.”
According to the Post-Dispatch, Lewis relentlessly pursued McCarver and “spent many an afternoon at the McCarver home, talking baseball, catching and lastly, but not least, telling the St. Louis Cardinals story.”
After signing the deal in the early morning before his father, a police lieutenant, went to work, McCarver said, “I am too excited for words, but I am happy that Mr. Lewis was the scout signing me, and I am thankful for the confidence expressed by the Cardinals.”
Quick rise
McCarver was sent to the Cardinals’ Class D minor-league affiliate at Keokuk, Iowa, of the Midwest League. He made his professional debut in the second game of a doubleheader at Waterloo, Iowa, on June 14, 1959, according to the Daily Gate City newspaper of Keokuk.
Years later, McCarver told the Commercial Appeal the home plate umpire in his professional debut was Brent Musburger, the future sportscaster. However, that wasn’t so. The home plate umpire was Bob Thompson and the base umpire was Chuck Wahl, research by the Daily Gate City showed. Musburger was the home plate umpire a week later, June 21, 1959, in a game McCarver caught for Keokuk at Michigan City, Ind. Musburger was the umpire in 11 games McCarver played for Keokuk, according to the Daily Gate City.
McCarver was hailed as Keokuk’s best catching prospect since Russ Nixon, who hit .385 for Keokuk in 1955 before embarking on a 12-year playing career in the majors. “The fans will love this kid,” Keokuk manager Frank Calo said. “If they think Russ Nixon had it, wait until they see this kid.”
Unfazed by professional pitching, McCarver hit .360 in 65 games for Keokuk. 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.”
Major-leaguer
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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