Major League Baseball

Baseball world reacts to death of Tim McCarver

Updated Feb. 16, 2023 5:43 p.m. ET

For more than six decades, including 21 seasons as a major-league player and then a Hall of Fame career as a broadcaster, Tim McCarver was a mainstay in the game of baseball.

When news broke Thursday that the two-time All-Star catcher and six-time Emmy-winning broadcaster had died at age 81, the baseball world was quick to react.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred released a statement on McCarver's death.

Reaction was also swift on social media, expressing appreciation for McCarver's storied career.

McCarver played 21 seasons at the big-league level from 1959-1980. He spent time with the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox. McCarver was a two-time World Series-champion who registered a career .271 batting average.

After his retirement as a player in 1980, McCarver found a second career as a Hall of Fame broadcaster. He worked for all four major networks, but spent the most time at FOX, where he was paired with Joe Buck on the network's broadcasts from 1996 to 2013. McCarver called 24 World Series throughout his career, 18 of them for FOX.

McCarver was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2016 and officially retired from broadcasting in 2022.