Tim McCarver Sings Songs from the Great American Songbook

Major League Baseball legend and Fox Sports commentator Tim McCarver brings out the best in this classic collection, Sings Selections from the Great American Songbook.

Produced by Sid Selvidge and cut with a host of Memphis recording greats (Tony Thomas, Tom Lonardo, Sam Shoup, Jim Spake, Steve Selvidge, more), Sings blows the dust off some of the most moving vintage American standards from the last century and gives new life to each selection chosen carefully by the former All Star and World Series winner.

Selections include: On A Clear Day, One For My Baby (And One More For The Road), A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square, and many, many more!

Diamond Gems

Tim McCarver’s “Diamond Gems” is a comprehensive collection of anecdotes and stories from the legends of the baseball diamond. These stories, gleaned from McCarver’s internationally syndicated, talk show, weave an almost mythological tapestry of the mindset of the greats of baseball.

Stan Musial claims he was a “low ball hitter and a highball drinker.” These stories divulge amazing and often profound revelations. Don Mattingly credits Lou Piniella as the person who taught him how to hit for power in the majors; Mike Schmidt, with sadness that oozes off the page, regrets that he didn’t have a friendlier relationship with the Philly fans; and Alex Rodriguez and Cal Ripken relate the same story of how Ripken was pushed into playing shortstop for one last time during his last all star game appearance. This gem of a story is told from the point of view from Ripken and Rodriguez and neatly juxtaposed in the book.

With stories like these how can you lose? “Diamond Gems” is a must-read for all baseball fans and sports enthusiasts alike. Everyone will have their favorite stories, their favorite gems from the baseball diamond.

The Perfect Season

Tim McCarver, major league baseball’s premier analyst, has been surprising and delighting viewers for years with his remarkable insight. Fans who once were content to merely watch baseball were stimulated into wanting to think baseball as well. McCarver brings to the booth a combination of twenty-one years of major league service and nearly twenty more in broadcasting. There is nobody better at explaining the game than McCarver, and it is a rare game in which the viewer does not learn something new and unusual. Now he is putting down on paper all he knows about the sport, producing this unique perspective on how America’s pastime should be played and watched.

With his unmistakable wit and storytelling verve, McCarver succinctly explains the fundamentals and proper mechanics of baseball at the level necessary for success in the major leagues. Once the skills have been learned, the viewer can devise smart strategies, getting into the heads of the players, coaches, and managers: When should a player or manager be conservative or aggressive; what factors change as the count goes deeper; how do you set up an effective running game, and how can a defense try to sabotage it? This book is a gold mine for all fans, from brain surgeons and rocket scientists to beginners who want to start with the basics. (Even major leaguers will be able to pick up some pointers.) With a deeper knowledge and understanding of baseball, any fan will be able to watch it like a pro.

The Perfect Season: Why 1998 Was Baseball’s Greatest Year

Nineteen Ninety-Eight was the greatest season in baseball history. While Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa engaged in an epic duel for baseball’s most coveted individual record — Roger Maris’s 61 home runs, the New York Yankees set new standards for team excellence and established themselves as one of the greatest clubs in the history of the game.

Tim McCarver broadcast the climax of each of these extraordinary achievements and is uniquely positioned as a former player, a commentator, and writer to put 1998 into its proper perspective. McCarver is baseball’s best analyst and, as he showed with Tim McCarver’s Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans, he is as eloquent and witty on the page as he is behind the microphone. In The Perfect Season, McCarver revels in the homer race and the Yankees but shows that the season contained so much more, ensuring it will stand out as the best there has been. Star players performing to the height of their powers broke records set by true legends of baseball, linking today’s players with those who exist somewhere between myth and memory: Ruth and Cobb; Gehrig and Mays.

The Perfect Season describes the accomplishments of veterans like Juan Gonzalez, Roger Clemens, Ken Griffey, Jr., Mike Piazza, and Barry Bonds, and of the exceptional young players who hold the future of the game in their hands: Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, and Kerry Wood. Tim McCarver also laments the passing of some friends and colleagues: Richie Ashburn, Harry Caray, and Dan Quisenberry, and celebrates the careers of some stars who retired after the 1998 season.

The Perfect Season is a comprehensive account of 1998 and the perfect souvenir of baseball’s greatest year. With it, fans can remember the season in which they got back into the habit of watching the game and reestablished baseball as America’s Pastime.