NEW YORK—Tim McCarver, the All-Star catcher and Hall of Fame broadcaster who during 60 years in baseball won two World Series titles with the St. Louis Cardinals and had a long run as one of the country’s most recognized, incisive, and talkative television commentators, died Thursday. He was 81.
McCarver’s death was announced by baseball’s Hall of Fame, which said he died Thursday morning due to heart failure in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was with his family.
Among the few players to appear in major league games during four decades, McCarver was a two-time All Star who worked closely with two future Hall of Fame pitchers: The tempestuous Bob Gibson, whom McCarver caught for St. Louis in the 1960s, and the introverted Steve Carlton, McCarver’s fellow Cardinal in the 1960s, and a Philadelphia Phillies teammate in the 1970s….