MLB Phillies' Tom McCarthy Reaches 15-Year Milestone

The Phillies Tom McCarthy

When Tom McCarthy signed a deal to return to the Philadelphia Phillies broadcast team in 2008, the move was viewed as part of a succession plan for the legendary Harry Kalas.

According to The Philadelphia Business Journal the plan called for McCarthy to sub for Kalas on television play-by-play for the middle three innings with color commentators Chris Wheeler and Gary Matthews as well as serve as a sideline reporter.

The New Jersey native thought he would have a decade to ease into Kalas’ primary role. The team won the World Series that year but soon tragedy moved up McCarthy’s timeline.

On April 13, 2009, Kalas collapsed in the booth shortly before the Phillies were set to play the Washington Nationals in Washington, D.C. He was pronounced dead less than an hour later, with the cause being heart disease. Kalas had been the team’s primary broadcaster since 1971 and had recently been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

There were few people in Philadelphia more beloved than Kalas. He was the soundtrack of summer for generations of local baseball fans. McCarthy was now tasked with succeeding him on the fly.

Harry Kalas

Him stepping into the role was an initial shock to the system for longtime Phillies fans who had only known Kalas as their voice of the team. Criticism came from local fans and media. Matthews tried to encourage him early on by pointing out that someone had to succeed Hall of Fame players such as Willie Mays.

“I love this city and I love the fans, because I feel like I'm built like them as a sports fan,” said McCarthy, who is 55. “And I knew it would take time. I'd never took any of it personally, at all. It's just not my makeup. My makeup is to grind. To be a really good teammate. That's one of the biggest things to make everybody around me feel like they're part of our Phillies family. Those are my goals. The rest of it, I knew would take care of itself eventually.”

As the 15th anniversary of McCarthy’s tenure as the Phillies main TV play-by-play announcer on NBC Sports Philadelphia is shortly approaching, a generation of fans have now grown up with only knowing the man affectionately called TMac as the voice of the team. He said some wise words from Kalas helped him navigate his early years in the role and create his own legacy.

“He always told me and [radio play-by-play man Scott Franzke] that we had to be ourselves,” McCarthy said. “We couldn't try to be him or anybody else. And that was really important because we're all cut from totally different cloths. That's what makes every broadcast different.”