Letter to the Editor: Remembering Tim McCarver and a moment from his broadcasting career

When I was in sixth grade in 1962, my teacher, a sister from the St. Louis area, had a crush on young Tim McCarver. See his 1962 baseball card picture (shown above).

Years later, I will always also remember the one and only 1989 World Series, with Game 3 just about to start, with McCarver in more of his beginning in broadcasting.

There is a video if Tim McCarver and Al Michaels getting ready to broadcast the game, going through pregame highlights of Games 1 and 2, at the point where the quake hit. KGO-TV, the ABC-owned and operated station in the Bay Area, was the only TV station transmitter to stay on air continuously through the quake. While they lost power and the video feed at studio for a few minutes, the transmitter engineer stationed at the transmitter kept a fixed picture and audio feeding. 

Gates-Harris Broadcast Quincy built BT-25H Tri-Dual-Tran systems that were installed in 1972 on air at Mount Sutro, from which most all communications, less cellular, continues to come from to this day.

After microwave video and audio communications was restored between Candlestick Park and the studio, I remember the sporting event shifting from sports to a news event with McCarver and Michaels.   I remember a TV camera on the field shot a scene of Quincy area native Rick Reuschel, then playing for the Giants, and the look on his face with his family around him. He had to be thinking, “How are we going to get out of this place?” 

Reuschel went 17-8 that year for the Giants and beat my Cubs in one of the National League playoff games. He is seen serving up some big hits in Game 2 in the content being played out just before the quake. The A’s went on to sweep the Giants in 4 games after the series resumed in two weeks.

Don Carpenter
Quincy, Illinois