You kids only remember late period Tim McCarver from his Fox days. In the 1980’s Tim was a breath of fresh air. What you like about Ron and Keith now, Tim embodied. He brought insight to the game that we hadn’t heard before, and he was able to coax good stories out of a Ralph Kiner who had become, candidly, kind of buffoonish there for a while. (I’ll praise Ralph in a later installment, and Ralph had at least two late renaissance periods, but early 1980s Ralph was not best Ralph).
Tim taught us all that you never want to make the first out nor the third out at third base, and that there was a good chance that the person who made a spectacular defensive play would lead off the next inning, at least 1/9th of the time.
