McCarver Is Pretty Great, Even If You Don't Think So....

There are a lot of sports fans who do not like Tim McCarver and constantly complain about all kinds of things about his announcing.  He can be a little bit off at times, which obviously draws the ire of fans.....

and Deion Sanders......

However, this post is about Tim McCarver's baseball playing career.  Even that draws some unfounded criticism.   I was once told, while attending a Minor League game surrounded by Phillies fans, that the highlight of Tim McCarver's career was running out to shake Bob Gibson's hand after he set the World Series Game Strikeout Record against the Tigers in the first game of the 1968 World Series.....

That was pretty cool, but McCarver had a lot of more good moments in his career outside of calling a 17 strikeout effort in a World Series game.  McCarver actually won three World Series rings during his career.  Two with the Cardinals in 1964 and 1967, and much to the surprise of many Phillies fans at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, a ring with the 1980 Phillies team.

He was only on the Phillies for a month at the end of the 1980 season, but he did get to appear in a "Welcome Back Kotter" promotional video for a local television station.

McCarver actually spent most of the second half of his career with the Phillies.  He had a stop over with the Expos for a year, came back to the Cardinals for a season, played two years for the Red Sox, but ended up with 9 years total as a Phillie.  

As a baseball card guy, I have never really been all that interested in McCarver cards.  I have a couple hanging around the collection just for the simple reason that they were needed to complete a few of the Cardinals team sets that I have tried to assemble from the 1960s.  I recently had the chance to add a McCarver card for the sake of it being a McCarver card.   The card is from a cool set too....

I thought about it.  Okay.  

I have posted a few other cards from the 1971 Topps Greatest Moments set in the past.  I also have a Nate Colbert. St. Louis native, and Cardinals Hall of Famer Lou Brock.  So, the McCarver card has a St. Louis connection too, even though the picture on the left hand side of the card is with the Phillies, the black and white photo on the right is with the Cardinals.

I have seen at least one other Greatest Moments card with a similar set up, former Durham Bulls great Rusty Staub has an Expos picture with an Astros highlight.  I had to do a little research on the caption under the picture "Becomes 1st Catcher in History to Lead Majors in Triples" to see when this happened.......

1966 National League triples leader.  Kind of a cool feat for a catcher and goes to show that McCarver did something pretty great things around a baseball field....even if you don't agree.