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Many members of the sports media world paid tribute to Tim McCarver after the legendary MLB broadcaster passed away in 2023. That technically includes Tom Brady, whose attempt to honor the former catcher fell a bit flat when you consider he shared it more than three years after he died.
A ton of professional athletes have decided to pivot to broadcasting after bringing their career to an end. That includes Tim McCarver, who spent 21 seasons as a catcher for four MLB teams between 1959 and 1980.
I think it’s safe to assume most people reading this remember him best for what he achieved after he hung up his cleats, as McCarver started working as a television analyst almost immediately after retiring from the game. He spent time with ABC, CBS, and NBC before taking his talents to Fox in 1996, where he spent close to two decades calling games alongside Joe Buck before turning his attention to local broadcasts following the conclusion of the 2013 season.
On February 16, 2023, the man who was born in Memphis, Tennessee passed away there at the age of 81, and it appears that development did not end up on the radar of another former pro who currently covers a different sport for Fox based on what transpired on Tuesday.
Tom Brady issued an awkward apology after being led to believe Tim McCarver died in 2026 as opposed to 2023
The broadcaster I was referring to in the previous paragraph is Tom Brady, who made his debut as an analyst for NFL games on Fox in 2024.
A job at that network isn’t the only thing Brady has in common with McCarver. The former was also a left-handed catcher who showed enough promise in high school to get drafted by the Montreal Expos, with whom the latter had a brief stint during the 1972 season, before making the sage decision to stick with football.
However, there is nothing that suggests there was any serious connection between the two men, and it definitely seems that was the case based on what Brady had to say in the most recent installment of his 199 newsletter.
The theme of the dispatch he shared on Tuesday was “Leading Through Likability,” and he opened things up by paying tribute to the man he said served as the inspiration for his latest rounds of musings, saying:
The great Tim McCarver passed away three years ago. Tim had my job for FOX—lead analyst—from 1996 to 2013, but on the baseball side. Tim called more than 20 World Series in his career. He was fantastic at his job. Insightful, analytical, passionate, and immensely likable.
However, as I learned via Awful Announcing, the original version of that post began with “The great Tim McCarver passed away last week” before it was amended a little more than 30 minutes later along with a mea culpa where the error was chalked up to a “proofreading mistake.”
Tom Brady wrote in his newsletter today (sent at 7:05 a.m. ET) that Tim McCarver had passed away last week.
At 7:40 a.m. ET, Tom Brady corrected himself in a 2nd email, writing that McCarver had actually passed away on February 16, 2023. Brady called it a “proofreading mistake”. pic.twitter.com/rhQvV0STuq
— René Bugner (@RNBWCV) March 10, 2026
Whoops!