Where was Tim McCarver’s Bob Gibson story today?

FOX broadcaster Tim McCarver needs a primer on baseball’s unwritten rules. Because his faux outrage over CC Sabathia hitting Dustin Pedroia in the butt is a bit much, given how much McCarver worships and praises former teammate Bob Gibson, one of the biggest headhunters of all time.

McCarver should know better that according to those unwritten rules he worships so much, whether or not Josh Beckett intentionally hit Robinson Cano and Derek Jeter (and threw inside to Francisco Cervelli) is irrelevant. The fact is, two Yankee stars got hit, and Boston had to expect a payback. As I noted earlier, even the Boston Herald had a piece today saying the Sox could expect that to happen today, and that it would be justified.

But Tim, the broadcaster who always seems to have a Bob Gibson story to chastise These Kids Today, didn’t seem to have one for today’s game. This, even though that if there were any time for a Gibson story, it was in this game.

Instead, McCarver insisted that what Beckett did was unintentional, disregarding that whole unwritten rules thingy he usually obsesses over. And then he chastised CC for harmlessly hitting Pedroia in the buttocks, even though his idol Gibson would have aimed a lot higher, and potentially done much more damage. Then again, maybe McCarver was worried that the pitch CC threw would give Dustin brain damage!

Just two weeks ago, McCarver was citing Bob Gibson for the umpteenth time. This was to gripe about Alex Rodriguez breaking that unwritten rule about walking across the mound. You know, the rule that nobody under 50 ever heard of until A-Rod did it. In that case, McCarver praised Gibby for throwing in at Pete Rose – twice – for walking on the mound.

Heck, McCarver is on record as also praising Gibson for hitting a batter at an Old Timers’ Game, 15 years after the batter hit a home run off him.

So it is kind of funny, given how many times McCarver has cited Gibson as the arbiter of all that is true and correct in baseball over the years, how Gibby’s name never crossed Tim’s lips when it came to what CC Sabathia did today. And how McCarver even insisted that an up-and-in pitch to Jeter later in the game was completely unintentional.

I don’t know why McCarver seems to have forgotten all his Bob Gibson stories today, but it sure makes him sound pretty hypocritical.



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