After opting out in 2020, Tim McCarver will remain out of Cardinals booth for foreseeable future

“Everything is fine with me, I’m very healthy...I just have to use common sense.”
Tim McCarver at his Cardinals Hall of Fame induction in 2017. Tim McCarver at his Cardinals Hall of Fame induction in 2017.

The impact of COVID-19 was felt all across the 2020 MLB season in various ways. One of them was the way it forced many older broadcasters to opt-out of calling games altogether. That included Tim McCarver, who ultimately decided not to participate in the 2020 season as an analyst for the St. Louis Cardinals. While he was interested in calling games, the advice of his doctor, coupled with the inability to travel to St. Louis for Fox Sports Midwest broadcasts, ultimately caused the then-78-year-old to stay home and stay safe.

While we’ve certainly seen some things trending positively so far in 2021, it does not appear that McCarver will be rejoining the Cardinals booth this season, at least not at first. Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that McCarver, who became one of the Fox Sports Midwest’s Cardinals analysts in 2014, is not currently slated to be in the booth this year and it’s entirely possible his time with the team is done.

All Cardinals telecasts will continue to be done from in St. Louis’s Busch Stadium for home games and in a studio in town for road games, including 2021 spring training and at least half of the regular-season contests, per Caesar. That’s the scenario that kept McCarver from being able to commit to joining the crew and it’s expected to keep him out of the booth until things change.

McCarver told the Dispatch that the issue isn’t health, it’s just about being smart.

“Everything is fine with me, I’m very healthy — and plan on keeping it that way,” McCarver told Caesar. “I just have to use common sense.” The longtime broadcaster also said he recently received the first of two coronavirus vaccine shots.

[St Louis Post-Dispatch]

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Editorial Strategy Director for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.

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