Tom Brady pens tribute to Tim McCarver, who he thought died last week

If you’re wondering why Tom Brady is the only person talking about Tim McCarver’s death, it’s because he’s the only one who thought the former lead MLB on Fox analyst died last week.

More than three years after McCarver passed away, Brady got around to writing his eulogy. Better late than never.

In Brady’s defense, he genuinely believed McCarver’s passing, which happened Feb. 16, 2023, was fresh news. He admitted so in his latest newsletter, and amazingly, it was published before anyone could catch Brady to let him know McCarver died three years ago.

“The great Tim McCarver passed away last week,” Brady wrote in his newsletter. “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.

“As I prepare for my second off-season self-scout as a broadcaster, I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about the more intangible qualities of greatness and leadership. One of them, which I call ‘likability’, came right back to the front of my mind with Tim McCarver’s passing.”

If Tom Brady thought Tim McCarver died last week, didn’t he find it odd there was no statement from Fox? There was nothing from the St. Louis Cardinals, nothing from Joe Buck, Bob Costas or any of Major League Baseball’s foremost voices? That’s because they all eulogized McCarver three years ago, when he died.

35 minutes after Brady’s newsletter was emailed to all his subscribers, he sent a follow-up to their inboxes, noting McCarver actually passed away on Feb. 16, 2023, calling the error a “proofreading mistake.” Maybe Brady saw an old headline about McCarver somewhere, maybe he doesn’t run his newsletter topics by anyone, and maybe he doesn’t have anyone proofreading, which seems unlikely.

The fact that Tom Brady wrote an entire newsletter about Tim McCarver on the premise of him dying last week and hit send before anyone could pick up the mistake, makes no sense.

We’ve seen some bizarre eulogies in sports media, led by Mike Francesa who often finds a way of mixing a slight into his ode to the dead. But Brady thinking March 10, 2026 was the right time to pen a tribute to Tim McCarver will go down as one of the strangest eulogies in sports media history. Brady’s ode to McCarver was well-intentioned, even if it wasn’t well-timed.