Name: Tim McCarver Talks Baseball, On-Air Gaffes And More | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-02-16T21:53:42.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tim McCarver Talks Baseball, On-Air Gaffes And More | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-02-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tim McCarver Talks Baseball, On-Air Gaffes And More | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-02-16. Transcript available.

our next guest played major league baseball for two decades including is that
right we played in
three decades but for two 20 years in three different decades uh including uh
three world
series uh he is now the much beloved voice of the new york mets please welcome
tim mccarver
you ever met terry gard before i have never met terry she's a delight not be a
baseball fan i am a
baseball fan i didn't mean to imply that i wasn't i am certainly weren't you
born in new york and grew
up in l.a maybe maybe not what do you mean maybe you either you know it or you
don't know that's not
i wasn't born in new york north hollywood right well that's where i grew up
yeah so what was your
favorite ball team as a kid the dodgers yeah dodger dogs were the part that i
liked when i was a kid
yeah now i like the game well you know where the dodgers originated don't you
brooklyn dodgers yeah
57 they moved to los angeles when did you start playing ball 1959 1959 you
broke in with whom with
the st louis cardinals yeah and uh i actually started in keokuk iowa uh in
class d ball that was when they
had uh d baseball in those days what what cities would you play in when you
were playing in that uh
uh keokuk keok where paris illinois michigan city indiana dubuque iowa real biggies
did they
have nice fields or was it just like playground fields they had the fields were
all right but the
lights were terrible yeah and uh we were getting uh four and a half dollars a
day meal money in those
days as a matter of fact warren roddenberry uh who's from valdosta georgia they
paid him 50 a month
extra to drive the bus yeah he made 250 a month and they gave him 300 if he'd
drive the bus and that's
why it had to be a long relief because he couldn't start yeah did they did they
scout guys for those
kind of abilities that they could double up on things bus driver ball player
that's what it says on your
bubblegum card we were looking at this before he came out here tim this man is
a ball player
is this your uh that is a terrible picture that's cute how old were you there
this is that actually
yeah that was in 1960 uh when i was playing with the memphis chicks and the
ballpark had burned down
that year it's a bad year the ballpark burned down uh in 1960 we came back from
playing in nashville
and a three-game series and the ballpark was burning down we had to plant a
football field yeah
220 feet down the right field line there were 11 home runs hit the first night
pretty good deal yeah what uh now when you when you started playing the major
league baseball did you
did you fit right in immediately or were you uh a kid from a small town well i
was from memphis
well i still i'm still from memphis um i joined the ball club in milwaukee this
is really interesting
isn't it yes it is i joined carrie pay attention and make you feel comfortable
i joined the ball club
in milwaukee and in those days i i was where i joined the club at milwaukee
county stadium out on brown
wingtips yellow socks gray pants uh a red band line band lines were big back in
those some kind of a
peculiar space age fiber that uh i don't know what what was it it was i don't
know yeah it was if you
pinched it like that it went back to your bite it was one of those strange five
um and of course i had
a plaid sport coat on and and uh really looked good i looked terrible it was
awful and uh i joined
the club i went to the ballpark that night and i was a big henry aaron fan when
i was growing up along
with monty irvin rip ripulski jabbo jablonski and i was in a cardinal uniform
mind you and the milwaukee
braves were going for a pennant that year and i was sitting in the uniform in
the cardinal uniform and
henry came up up to bat two two ball game in the sixth inning and i gave it one
of those come on henry
well that alex gramos alex gramos who is now the third base coach for the detroit
tigers comes up and
he says uh tim in this league we cheer for our guys felt like a complete jerk
yes i did yeah yes i did
uh and uh to tell me about when was the big food fight was that in philadelphia
in 76 it seems like
after uh i i wrote this book and and it seems like in baseball there were the
food fight was in 76 after the
76 uh uh playoff that we won but it seems like everything in baseball revolves
around food the
post-game spread and what have you as a matter of fact in 1967 we played the boston
red sox in the
world series and in the sixth game of the world series alex johnson was called
on to be the pinch
hitter by red shandys who was our manager let me interrupt a second but wasn't
alex johnson noted for
being a little peculiar uh yeah we led the league in hitting that's peculiar
enough
got to be peculiar to leave this is also the guy and i hope i'm not wrong here
that was carrying
a gun with him in the dugout for a while that's right yeah yeah he did go ahead
but anyway red sent up for alex uh to pinch hit in game six and and the clubhouse
attendant went up
and alex had mayonnaise streaming down both he was he had a bologna sandwich
that thick
and he never got to hit in that world series and can you imagine as a
grandfather trying to
explain to your grandchildren that you had a chance to play in the world series
but you couldn't because
you were eating a sandwich a lot of things revolve around or cleaning your gun
one of the two
loading up my firearm uh we got more to talk about here with uh with tim and of
course terry our new
co-host us uh we have to pause for a commercial and we'll be right back i'm dave
this is tim this is
terry you've you've really kind of uh at least in my estimation and i think
this is generally true
you have sort of redefined uh what it is that a tv play-by-play color man does
for a baseball team i
mean you have really upgraded that position for especially just at a local
level and and also uh on
on network coverage well and it's really not an easy job i think a lot of
athletes uh have a tendency
to think that uh being an analyst if they were a good interview as a player for
instance uh that it
would naturally naturally naturally follow that they would be uh uh good in the
booth and it doesn't
naturally follow i mean i've had more i made a lot of mistakes up there that i
would like to take back
believe me i remember once i remember once uh once last year i was on with ralph
kiner and
howard johnson the third baseman for the mets got a bad hop the ball kind of
crawled down his arm he
caught it threw it throughout the runner and and as i as i'm talking i'm trying
to this image of a mother
cradling a baby came into into my mind and i was trying to make some analogy
with the hop that and and
so we have the replay the hop goes up the arm and everything i said sometimes
infielders have to
feel the ground ball like mothers handle their children he said watch how howard
johnson smothers
this ball against i did not want to say smother and obviously not good advice ralph
ralph kiner
my colleague is looking at me and i didn't know where to take it and he said i
think you meant to
say cradle i said cradle cradle that's has ralph ever dozed off during a game
like a double
have you ever had to wake ralph up to take over by no means i'm telling you he
is uh 26 years with the
mets uh famous home run hitter for the pittsburgh and what is where is he in
the record book he is
like on the list of all-time home run hitters he is where 369 home runs career
and he was seventh
when he retired now i think he's 35th or something like that but he is next to
babe ruth in home run
frequency oh yeah for per at-bats what is it second i think it's one home run
every 14.69 yeah so that's
trouble yeah that's it is and he's a delight to work with day in and day out uh
uh the book must be
doing great i would think well baby i love it well like bob euchar says the one
thing bad about writing
a book is when you sell one you have to go back and type another one printing
them one at a time
uke has a way with words he really does now let's let's talk about the mets
here for a little bit now
off-season turmoil i guess a little of that was to be expected after such a
such a high in october
when they won everything from boston but uh did did you have any inkling that
all of this stuff was
going on i mean did it surprise you um i think a lot of people talk about
obviously the dwight goodin
situation about whether anybody connected with the organization suspected
anything like that
the use of cocaine he's in for drug rehabilitation now and uh you know he was
late for a few appointments
last year he missed some ball games uh i mean he didn't miss any ball games he
was late for a point
missed missed some appointments right and when you miss appointments i mean
when you're 22 years old
you're going to do that you're going to be late for a few appointments these
are kids these are just
yeah he's a he's a very young man i mean his first year in the big leagues he
was 19 years old he's
won 58 games in his first three years if he had been using a substance during
last season could that have
accounted for less than the great season he had previously not that last season
was a bad season at
all well i don't i don't think so because uh what we were talking about on the
broadcast last year were
losing something off his fastball i mean if you're going to indict every
pitcher for
having a worse year one year and after all he was 17 and six last year but
everybody kept comparing
they think that that's a bad year and you know he was uh fourth in the league
in era and he was 24
and four the year before and i think everybody kept comparing him now does he
get to come back after
this uh therapy and so yes he does and he they are the average length of stay
in the smithers uh drug
rehabilitation center is 28 days but that depends on the uh on the person
obviously and
how severe the case is yeah how did he look in spring training he looked good
and that was the thing
i mean uh we interviewed him last year and he looked fine throughout the season
i mean it's fine i
i don't really know people say how do you you know don't you suspect something
like that how do you go
about suspecting that i don't know yeah uh but it looks like it's gonna be
another good year even
without him for a month or so they are a strong ball club but uh i think in the
national league east the
philadelphia phillies have strengthened themselves with lance paris yeah they
really have and joe cowley
the ex yankee and of course the cardinals got tony pena uh the book is tim mccarver
oh baby i love
it and if it's anything like the work the man does in the booth it's uh must be
a terrific read terry do
you have a question for tim i don't think so okay tim pleasure to meet you have
a great season thank
you very much uh let me apologize to gilbert godfried he was originally
scheduled to be here
we ran out of time and we'll see to it that he comes back as soon as possible
in the meantime
you can enjoy a fine gilbert godfried performance on a cable outlet uh he has a
show on cinemax
named uh something gilbert the gilbert godfried special yeah that's it on cinemax
my thanks of
course to uh tim mccarver and uh terry gar nice to have you folks here it was a
lot of fun wasn't
it it sure yeah uh we'll see you tomorrow with michael j fox ladies and
gentlemen