John Roseboro of the Dodgers and Tim McCarver of the Cardinals were opposing catchers with similar styles. Both were former football players who viewed baseball as a contact sport.
As a standout high school athlete in Memphis, McCarver had football scholarship offers from the likes of Alabama and Notre Dame. Roseboro played football at Central State, a historically black college, in Ohio.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Roseboro was “generally recognized as the toughest plate blocker” in baseball. When he and McCarver collided one day at the plate, the force was unlike any they’d experienced on a baseball field.
Matter of pride
The Dodgers came to St. Louis in June 1963 for a three-game weekend series with the first-place Cardinals. A sweep could vault the Dodgers from 2.5 games behind into the lead.
In the June 21 opener, Sandy Koufax was on the verge of pitching his third consecutive shutout when McCarver, batting with two outs in the ninth, slammed a three-run home run onto the pavilion roof in right. A left-handed batter, it was McCarver’s first big-league home run against a left-handed pitcher.
The Dodgers escaped with a 5-3 victory. Boxscore
Full impact
The next day’s pitching matchup on June 22 featured rookie left-hander Nick Willhite for the Dodgers against Bob Gibson. In his Dodgers debut six days earlier, Willhite shut out the Cubs. Gibson was riding a streak of four wins in a row.
With the score tied at 1-1 in the fifth inning, McCarver was on third, one out, when Curt Flood tapped the ball toward third baseman Maury Wills. McCarver broke for the plate, but Wills got to the ball and tossed it to Roseboro. “I foolishly tried to score against him,” McCarver recalled in his autobiography, “Oh, Baby, I Love It.”
Roseboro, mentored by Roy Campanella, “was the best in baseball at blocking the plate,” pitcher Johnny Klippstein said in the book “We Played the Game.” “He was tough.”
McCarver knew that, too. In his autobiography, he said Roseboro “was as intransigent at home plate as a derrick.”
Favoring what The Sporting News described as a “rock-’em, sock-’em type of play,” McCarver gave no thought to turning back. As Roseboro protected the plate, bracing for a collision, McCarver barreled into him.
“He stood his ground, as always, his knee digging into me,” McCarver recalled in his book, “and the whole right side of my face opened up like a can of tomatoes. I had a long burn along one side of my face and he knocked my neck into a stiff state.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, McCarver came out of the crash with “a shiner, the size of a dollar.”
Roseboro lost a lens from his eyeglasses, but held onto the ball and tagged out McCarver. The impact “jammed Roseboro’s shoulder, hurt his knee and spiked his left ankle,” the Times reported. Roseboro told the newspaper it was the hardest he’d ever been hit _ “and I’ve got the bruises to prove it.”
In his 1987 book, McCarver said, “I still suffer from nerve damage in my neck, more than 20 years after that Roseboro collision. (Dodgers coach) Leo Durocher said it was the worst collision he’d ever seen.”
Another jolt
Both Roseboro and McCarver stayed in the game. Charlie James broke the tie with a solo home run for the Cardinals in the sixth.
Like McCarver, Roseboro batted left-handed. With left-hander Bobby Shantz pitching in the ninth, Dodgers manager Walter Alston sent Doug Camilli to bat for Roseboro. Camilli singled, but the Cardinals held on for a 2-1 triumph, evening the series. Boxscore
Though the Cardinals started a right-hander, Ernie Broglio, in the series finale, Alston gave Roseboro the day off. McCarver was in the Cardinals’ lineup and tripled, but the Dodgers prevailed, 4-3. Boxscore
Roseboro didn’t start a game for more than a week because of the damage caused by the crash with McCarver.
The day after the Dodgers left town, the Giants began a series at St. Louis. In the June 24 opener, after leadoff batter Harvey Kuenn tripled, Chuck Hiller grounded to second. When Kueen broke for home, Julian Javier threw to McCarver.
“As I took the throw, I looked to my left, and Kuenn’s belt buckle was about two inches from my face,” McCarver said in his book.
Kuenn crashed into McCarver, then reached over him, trying to touch the plate, but McCarver held him off and made the putout. Boxscore
“I believed in denying the runner the plate on bang-bang, very close plays,” McCarver said in his autobiography. “That was the way I was taught, and I continued to think that’s what I was being paid to do.”
Playing to win
The Dodgers and Cardinals turned out to be the two best teams in the National League in 1963. The Dodgers took control of the pennant race in late September when they swept a three-game series in St. Louis. They also swept the Yankees in the World Series. The Cardinals, with 93 wins, placed second to the 1963 Dodgers. They won the pennant with the same number of wins in 1964.
Roseboro and McCarver were the catchers for the National League champions in seven of the 10 World Series played between 1959 and 1968, the last year the best team in the league automatically went to the World Series.
Roseboro started in all 21 games the Dodgers played in four World Series in that stretch (six in 1959, four in 1963, seven in 1965 and four in 1966). McCarver also started in all 21 games the Cardinals played in three World Series during that period (seven apiece in 1964, 1967 and 1968).
RetroSimba 
Roseboro never seemed to get much credit for his handling of that great Dodgers pitching staff. He didn’t hit for much average (few catchers in that era did), but he could deliver a clutch hit. It’s too bad that he’s remembered mostly for August 22, 1965, Marichal vs. Roseboro.
I agree with you on all points.
In Jane Leavy’s biography of Sandy Koufax, it’s said that John Roseboro was Koufax’s favorite receiver.
In his autobiography, “Glory Days with the Dodgers,” Roseboro said, “Frankly, I think I became the best catcher in the league in the 1960s. No Johnny Bench by any means, but Bench didn’t come along until later…. I was at least one of the best in my years. I made a lot of all-star teams and deserved it.”
Roseboro indeed didn’t want to be remembered primarily as the victim of Juan Marichal’s attack of him with a bat. Roseboro said to Sports Illustrated, “A ballplayer would like to be remembered for something better than a bloody brawl.”
I was a little too young to remember this when it happened, but it was indeed a brutal collision. Two great competitors, Mark. I do remember Tim recalling this years after the fact.
Your description of John Roseboro and Tim McCarver as “two great competitors” is an apt one, Bruce.
In the book “We Played the Game,” McCarver told author Danny Peary, “The ballplayers in my era were more educated than the previous generation, but they were equally tough. There was still an eye-for-an-eye brand of baseball. Because there were one-year contracts, it was played with much drive and tenacity.”
It must have hurt just to witness the collision between Tim McCarver and John Roseboro!! The mutual respect and admiration that had is pretty cool. I agree that it’s a shame that John Roseboro is mostly remembered for that infamous brawl with Juan Marichal. How many people know that in game 3 of the 1959 World Series he threw out 3 players on stolen base attempts? Really impressive if you take into consideration that the White Sox led the league in steals that year.
Thanks for a fun note on John Roseboro throwing out 3 runners attempting to steal in a World Series game, Phillip. That was some performance.
It happened on Oct. 4, 1959, in Game 3 before 92,394 spectators at the Los Angeles Coliseum. With Don Drysdale pitching, Roseboro nailed Jungle Jim Rivera, Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox, all at second base.
Roseboro’s performance played a big part in the Dodgers’ 3-1 win. The White Sox scored just once despite getting 12 hits and four walks.
Asked by the Los Angeles Times whether Roseboro was tough to steal against, Aparicio, who led the American League in steals that season with 56, replied, “You’re damn right, he’s tough to steal on.”
The Chicago Tribune reported that Aparicio got a good jump on his steal attempt, but Roseboro made a “perfect throw.”
Roseboro credited Drysdale’s delivery with helping him stop the White Sox runners. Drysdale told the Tribune, “I don’t kick my leg way up when I pitch like most guys do.”
While Roseboro “came in for profuse praise for his nailing of three theft-minded White Sox,” the Times reported, he preferred to talk about almost hitting a home run. His drive to the 380-foot mark in right was hauled in at the wall by Rivera in the sixth inning, and Roseboro was surprised it didn’t carry more. “Don’t think I ever hit one that felt much more homerish,” Roseboro said to the Times. https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1959/B10040LAN1959.htm
Those are two tough ballplayers! I was unaware of the collision game. McCarver was such a class act. I learned so much from him as an announcer. I think I’ll read his book, the one you mentioned.
It’s amazing it took so long for the Posey rule to go into effect. Part of me wishes there was no rule and runners could crash into catchers and as a result enhance the entertainment, but I have the impression players are just too damn big and strong these days, making collisions very dangerous, but then again, from what I’ve read, players in the past, some of them anyway, were reckless or maybe the better term is hard nosed which might be the equivalent of being big and strong and as a result, equally as dangerous.
I think you’ll appreciate the insights from this passage from Tim McCarver in “Oh, Baby, I Love It:”
“I’ve always maintained that catchers enjoy body contact, at least a certain amount of it. The late Thurman Munson liked it. Johnny Bench did, too, before he ran into troubles with his body. Tony Pena, Mike Scioscia, Gary Carter, Carlton Fisk and Rick Dempsey won’t ever walk away from a bruising confrontation at home plate. You can’t tell me these guys don’t like that banging around in the dirt, that tooth-rattling concussion. Catching takes a certain approach to life _ tough-headed, combative, competitive, macho _ call it what you choose. Some call it nuts, but this macho approach is not a negative thing in this instance. Just the opposite. It’s part of the job. It’s necessary. You can’t catch without it, just the way an interior lineman in football can’t play unless he can live with pain.”
Thanks for the quote. I like how he says “catching takes a certain approach to life.” I guess it’s good if we all have a little catcher in us.
Now that McCarver is gone, I need to make an effort to find his book. I always enjoyed his analysis even if it was a bit long-winded, but I’d imagine the book to be full of gems and have a perspective of the game I hadn’t seen before.
In a recent radio interview with Dan Patrick, Al Michaels said, “When I think back through my career, I had John Madden, who of course taught millions of people to love football more than they did, and how to understand football. I would put Tim McCarver in that category with baseball. I think Timmy taught as much baseball to millions of people as John Madden did football to the millions of people that loved John.”
please do you have an email address where I can write and greet you about the Cardinals? Many thanks