Tom McCarthy reflects on hectic September, son’s success and broadcast future
The month of September has been an exhausting one for Tom McCarthy, even if the 54-year-old seems unphased by it all.
During the final full month of the MLB regular season, McCarthy has called all but five of the Philadelphia Phillies games as he continues to serve as the primary TV voice for the franchise, a role he assumed upon the passing of Harry Kalas in April of 2009.
But on the days where McCarthy has been absent from the Phillies booth, it’s not as though he’s been taking load management days. Quite the opposite, really.
In addition to the Phillies, McCarthy has already called three NFL regular season games in 2022. In Week 1, McCarthy and former star running back Tiki Barber called the Indianapolis Colts-Houston Texans game on CBS. The pair were together again on CBS in Week 2, this time broadcasting a 24-0 win by the Jaguars over the Colts in Jacksonville. A day later, McCarthy joined Ross Tucker in the Westwood One radio booth in Buffalo, as the two did the national broadcast for the Tennessee Titans-Bills game on Monday Night Football.
The first question Phillies Nation had for McCarthy during a wide-ranging interview earlier this week was a simple one: Aren’t you exhausted?
“Nah,” McCarthy said instinctively. “I mean, I don’t really operate on too much sleep anyway. I usually get four-and-a-half, five hours anyway.
“To me, this is what being a broadcaster is all about. It’s just having the opportunity to call really good games, with the Phillies being my foundation piece. And then the other parts of the puzzle kind of fitting in when they can fit in, like they did this past weekend. So it was exhilarating, quite frankly.”
McCarthy then explained what the last week of his schedule has been like. What he calls an “exhilarating” schedule would seemingly leave many on the verge of physical and/or mental breakdown.
Monday, Sept. 12: “The off day [for the Phillies] was great, I got all my charts done for both NFL games. And what I mean by that is I got the names, numbers, the heights, weights, all that stuff done.”
Tuesday, Sept. 13: “And then I had a schedule all week in my mind. I’d get up at seven, operate on three hours of the Jags-Colts on Tuesday. That would take me to about 10, 10:30. And then from 10:30-noon, I would tinker from the Bills and Titans on Tuesday. And then from noon until I got on the bus was my Phillies prep. And you know you’re playing the Marlins, so you’ve played them a number of times, so it was kind of easy to be ready for them.”
Wednesday, Sept. 14: “And then on Wednesday, it was all Jags-Colts from 7 a.m. until noon, and then Phillies from noon until I got on the bus and then got to the stadium.”
Thursday, Sept. 15: “Thursday was basically the same. At that point, my notes and my rosters and my chart was all done. So I just kind of tinkered with that and I started doing a little bit more of the Bills and Titans on Thursday, and then obviously got ready for the Phillies.”
Friday, Sept. 16: “And Friday was meetings at the hotel in Atlanta with the Jaguars. So I did those over the phone, and they were great. … I met with [Doug] Pederson, Trevor Lawrence, Josh Allen and Mike McCoy on Friday. And I did all that, and typed it all in like I normally do. And then went and did the game against the Braves.”
Saturday, Sept. 17: “And the next day, I woke up and drove to Jacksonville. I gave Tiki [Barber] my rental car so he could go see his son (who plays for Princeton) against Stetson. We shared the rental car, which was good because he got a chance to see his son play, which is awesome. And I just had my meetings with the Colts.”
Sunday, Sept 18: Not only did McCarthy and Barber broadcast Colts at Jaguars Sunday, but after he made the 5:35 ET flight back to Philadelphia by the skin of his teeth, McCarthy didn’t waste time embarking to Buffalo. With one of his sons, Tommy, set to serve as a spotter during the Titans-Bills game, the two drove to Corning, New York after he landed at the airport in Philly. They stayed at a hotel in Corning — about halfway between Philly and Buffalo — that evening.
Monday, Sept. 19: The two drove from Corning to Highmark Stadium in Buffalo, a two-hour-and-20 minute drive. The elder McCarthy broadcasted the game with Tucker, a 41-7 win for the Bills that last three hours and 15 minutes. After the game, they again made the two-hour-and-20-minute drive back to Corning, where they stayed for the second consecutive night.
Tuesday, Sept. 20: Tom and Tommy departed Corning at 5:30 a.m. ET. By the early afternoon, Tom is at Citizens Bank Park, where he prepares to announce a Phillies-Blue Jays game that would start at 6:45 p.m. ET and ultimately last three hours and 41 minutes.
All announcers and beat writers have days off throughout the course of the season, even on some gamedays. Most used them to be off, well aware that the MLB season is a marathon, not a sprint. Given how hard McCarthy is pushing himself even as the MLB season continues, some have wondered if he has his eyes on an even larger role on CBS‘ NFL coverage in the future.
“My commitment is to the Phillies, and their commitment is to me — so this is my foundation,” he said. “I’ve been the seventh crew my entire time doing the NFL, and I’m perfectly content with being the seventh crew. Would I like to do more? Yeah, maybe — but only it if fits. And quite frankly, it doesn’t fit for me to leave the entire month of September.”
McCarthy had been scheduled to do the telecast of Cleveland Browns at Atlanta Falcons on CBS in Week 4 of the NFL season. That game, though, falls on Sunday, Oct. 2, when the Phillies will play a 1:35 p.m. ET game in Washington against the Nationals. If that’s not the day that the Phillies clinch a playoff berth, it will be a day that goes a long way towards either snapping or extending a 10-year postseason drought. So McCarthy passed on calling an NFL game that day, and will instead be with the Phillies.
McCarthy is thankful for the Phillies working with his schedule, and remembers that it wasn’t all that long ago when he was getting to fill in for Kalas and Scott Graham, both of whom had their fair share of lucrative football opportunities.
“The Phillies have always been really good to me when it comes to this kind of stuff because they know that I’ve always done football, basketball and baseball,” McCarthy said. “It’s kind of like the same formula that Harry had. Harry would do football. He would do some basketball, not a lot early on. But he would also do NFL films. So that would take a lot of his schedule.
“The only reason I’m doing play-by-play for the Phillies is because Scott Graham and Harry used to leave when I was first getting started as the pre and postgame host. And I had to fill in. It was me and Andy Musser, and Andy was kind of downsizing at that point in his career. So I got a chance to fill in.”
On three occasions this year, McCarthy has had conflicts that have forced him to be out of the TV booth — in addition to the two times he’s left to call NFL games, he also missed a game in May as his daughter graduated college.
In all three of those cases, Scott Franzke has shifted to the TV booth, something he had never previously done in his first 15 years with the Phillies. With Franzke out of the radio booth, Pat — McCarthy’s oldest son — has gotten a chance to slide into the radio booth at the major league level, a promotion from his usual gig as the play-by-play announcer for the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
“You know, it’s awesome,” McCarthy said with pride when talking about his son. “He’s been in the minor leagues since he was a senior in college, because he stopped playing baseball because he hurt his back. It’s important for anybody to get reps in minor league baseball. There are a lot of guys that are young that get a chance to go to the big leagues early. And that’s great. But for me, I’m proudest of the fact that he has done 142 games every year for the last six years. And in some ways, he’s done a lot of them by himself. But he’s also had some really good partners in the minor leagues, including Mike Ventola now with Lehigh Valley. But he does a lot of those games by himself, and that gives him even more reps.
“So the fact that he’s as polished as he is at 27 to me is really impressive, but I’m just proud of the person that he is more than anything else because he’s such a good kid. And he wants to learn and get better and he’s like a sponge in so many ways.”
Speaking of Franzke, he told Phillies Nation earlier this month that one of the things that he loves about being the radio voice of the team is that he gets to call their postseason games. Local TV broadcasters like McCarthy don’t, as all playoff telecasts are done by national crews.
So if the Phillies do indeed return to the postseason for the first time since 2011, does McCarthy know what his role will be?
“I don’t,” McCarthy admitted. “I haven’t done radio in years. So I’m going to basically be along for the ride, you know what I mean? I’ve got a college game, an SEC game, that I’m supposed to do, but I’ll go back and forth. Honestly, I’m kind of along for the ride and whatever they need me to do, I’ll do.”
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