Matt Holliday’s slide that injured SF’s Marco Scutaro have been big stories during the playoffs. (AP/UPI)
Tim McCarver switched to a later flight on Tuesday morning in an attempt to get more sleep before leaving San Francisco for St. Louis as the NLCS shifted to the Midwest.
He said his plan did not work though, and as way of explanation the long-time FOX broadcaster simply says, “That’s playoff baseball for ya.”
Few would know the difficulties that develop around postseason travel schedules better than McCarver, who will be announcing his 23rd World Series starting Wednesday night. That makes it 10 more than the legendary Curt Gowdy, who ranks second on the list and called 13 World Series in his Hall of Fame career.
When asked what keeps him motivated to keep so close to the sport 53 years after he made his major-league debut as a player with the Cardinals, the 71-year-old McCarver does not have to look far to find examples of what makes the postseason great in his opinion.
“When can you find in the history of postseason baseball something like this happening in such a short span, a situation that is quite like what the Yankees went through this year,” said McCarver, referencing the benching of Alex Rodriguez.
“How many situations are there like that? Was Mickey Mantle pinch-hit for in a World Series late in his career? Was Babe Ruth? The answer is an indefatigable no.”
The grind of a 162-game baseball season turns into a one-month sprint when every decision, every game is magnified. That only will increase in the World Series.
“In some ways postseason is a different sport because the game speeds up to an accelerated degree because of the urgency, the need to win quickly,” McCarver said. “I talked to [Atlanta manager] Fredi Gonzalez about a month and a half ago about what he learned from last season with the collapse of the Braves, and he said, ‘I learned impatience.’
“That’s what has always fascinated me about the postseason, and that’s what I’ve learned about the postseason over the years, how a pastoral game like baseball can turn into such a frenetic, speed-driven, impatient game in October.”
Though the attention of fans in New York has been squarely on Alex Rodriguez and Yankees manager Joe Girardi, McCarver has seen similar situations in the Giants-Cardinals NLCS that FOX is broadcasting. From the Giants figuring out what to do with young lefty starter Madison Bumgarner to the “cause celebre” — Matt Holliday’s take-out slide of Marco Scutaro in Game 2.
“That impatience shows up everywhere in the fans, in the coaches. It shows up in Matt Holliday sliding hard into second,” McCarver said. “He’s not a dirty player, but that gets attention because of when it happens. … Things like that is why you love the game. There are elements to postseason baseball that are thrilling, exciting.”