Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 8, 1992 TAG: 9202080449
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK TV/SPORTS COLUMNIST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
OLYMPIC STINT IS A NEW GAME FOR MCCARVER
Tim McCarver's winter hibernation is over.If the major-league catcher of more than two decades seems an unlikely co-host in the prime-time glamour of CBS Sports' Olympic coverage over the next two weeks, then consider how unusual the experience will be for McCarver, in another sense.
"I'll tell you what's different," said McCarver, as gregarious off the air as he is sagacious behind the mike. "This is the first winter I've worked in 31 years. I've always worked from mid-February to October, then been off.
"That's a pretty good deal, and I could have stuck with that. I could have said I didn't want to do this."
The last time McCarver worked for an entire winter was never. He went straight from Christian Brothers High in Memphis, Tenn., to pro baseball, where he spent 21 seasons behind the plate. After retiring from the game in 1980, he moved into radio and TV work in Philadelphia as a baseball analyst.
There wasn't much career planning involved, he concedes. In 1983, he moved to New York's WWOR to work the Mets' games. "I didn't need to be real smart to make that move," McCarver said. "In Philadelphia, we had five broadcasters and we needed four, and I was the fifth. I said, `Hmmmmmmmm . . . "
McCarver's Mets work attracted network attention. On short notice, he was hired to work the 1985 World Series for ABC. After calling two more Series for that network, he switched employers when the baseball contract moved to CBS. He's worked five of the last seven Series on the tube.
When he was named by CBS Sports to co-host the prime-time hours of the Winter Games from Albertville, France, he was surprised, but not stunned. After all, when he signed his CBS contract in 1990, the deal included a host's role for the '92 Winter Games. The surprise came in getting the plum, 8-11 p.m. anchor chair next to Paula Zahn of "CBS This Morning."
Think "Olympics host," and a Jim McKay, Brent Musburger or Bob Costas comes to mind. It's likely, however, that McCarver will display that he's more TV's top baseball analyst.
"I'm sure a lot of people are going to say initially, `What's he doing on there; he's a baseball guy,' " McCarver said recently before heading to France for a month. "Well, I'm not out to dispel those types of thoughts with anything other than with my work. If people are still going to think that no matter what I do, there's nothing I can do to eradicate that.
"This assignment is, without a doubt, the most distinctively different thing I've done in my life. Surprised about it? Initially I was. Was there trepidation? Sure. Was I interested in it? Sure. I asked myself, `What are we dealing with here?'
"It's television. I understand the business. I understand how TV works. The other reason I accepted this is because I'm serious and I'm interested. I always have been a winter sports fan. I'm not a bobsled driver. I've been in a bobsled. I took a half-bobsled drive at Lake Placid once. I would not have started at the top. No way."
McCarver's last Olympic telecast experience was brief and mostly forgettable. At the 1988 Calgary Games, he was assigned to freestyle skiing, which was a demonstration sport. He also did seven feature pieces "one of which got on the air, on the late-night show hosted by Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford," he said.
McCarver, 50, said his most valuable experience in Calgary was getting a feel for the "discipline of working the Games on TV, the arduous hours." In Albertville, CBS will be dealing with a six-hour time difference between France and New York. When McCarver and Zahn are showing the U.S. audience taped coverage, it will be 2-5 a.m. the next morning in the Alps.
"I see the role as being a guide for the viewer," McCarver said. "I'll be a conduit. I'll ask questions, hopefully the right ones, and I'll try to explain things when appropriate. That's where the Winter Games are different.
"Everybody knows basketball, swimming, track and field. To a lot of [U.S.] viewers, there are a lot of things that aren't necessarily known about winter sports. Part of my job is to define those things. After learning the discipline last time, the how to stick to it, I'd say that 80 percent of the knowledge I have on the Winter Games and the sports I've learned over the last 13 months."
McCarver said another reason he figures he was selected as a prime-time co-host was his schedule. "From the end of the baseball season, I had time to prepare," he said. "I had four months to get ready before the Games began."
As an ex-catcher, McCarver seems to look at his former game differently than those who played behind the pitcher. Whether he will view Winter Olympics sports differently than some others because of his baseball perspective "is an interesting question I haven't considered."
Likely, he will some time during the Games. A thinking man's analyst, McCarver is at home as much in front of a camera as he was behind the plate.