Around the horn with Tom and Pat McCarthy

How this father and son duo have become popular voices of Major League Baseball.

Words by Mark Simon

Pat and Tom McCarthy at a Mets vs. Phillies game at Citi Field

When the final out was made and the Philadelphia Phillies clinched a playoff berth in 2022, Phillies broadcaster Tom McCarthy ’90 did what a baseball announcer would typically do in this circumstance. He threw it to his sideline reporter for the post-game interviews.

Except that this was a special moment for more than just the Phillies. Tom passed the microphone, so to speak, to his son, Pat ’17, then a Phillies minor league broadcaster who was helping on the TV broadcast crew that night. “I took my headset off, put it down and thought, ‘Wow that was pretty incredible,’” says Tom. Three years later, Tom and Pat McCarthy are part of the history of father-son announcers in the major leagues (the most notable being four generations of the Caray family — the Hall of Fame sportscaster Harry, his son Skip, grandson Chip, and great grandson Chris). Tom is in his 17th year as the primary television voice of the Phillies and also announces for the NFL and college basketball. Pat is in his third season as a radio broadcaster for the New York Mets and does college hoops, too. Grab your peanuts and find your seats as we provide the play-byplay of their lives and careers.

1st inning: Leading off

Tom grew up in Brick, New Jersey, the middle of three boys and an avid New York Mets fan. He went to Trenton State in 1986 not having any sense of what he wanted to do, other than play baseball. “If someone had said ‘You should really make cheeseburgers for a living,’ I’d have made cheeseburgers,” says Tom, who started college as a biology major. He was cut from the TSC baseball team during his freshman year. But his Alpha Chi Rho fraternity contacts led him to sports writing jobs at Hopewell Valley News and the Trenton Times. Tom, who didn’t take a journalism class until his senior year of college, says he “had no idea how to write a story,” but learned on the job. Tom’s advisor, biology professor Gary Lipton, saw how well Tom was doing in writing and broadcasting and had questions: “What are you doing? Why are you a biology major?” Tom switched to communications, and a feature-writing trip to Charleston, South Carolina, for the Times was a turning point. He got a broadcasting opportunity there and made a demo tape. It helped him land a broadcasting and public relations job with the minor league Trenton Thunder in their inaugural season in 1994.

2nd inning: The home team

Pat grew up in Allentown, New Jersey, the oldest of four children born to Tom and his wife, Meg ’90. Not surprisingly, baseball was central to Pat’s childhood. As a kid, he learned the rules of the game (and his love for it) as he sat on his dad’s lap in the announcer’s booth. And on the flip side, his dad was in the stands to watch Pat develop into a star player. In fact, Tom caught Pat’s first Little League home run and can still recite from memory key moments from Pat’s athletic career, which included two years of pitching at TCNJ after transferring from Syracuse University.

It was at TCNJ where Pat blossomed into a broadcaster in his own right, calling field hockey, soccer, football, and basketball games. Having had a feel for what to do on the air from listening to his dad (and, admittedly, the voices on the baseball video games that he played), Pat was quick to pick up the trade. “He was a natural and was exceptional with his preparation,” says then-TCNJ sports information director Mark Gola.(1) “We might have had 22 viewers on the livestream, but Pat was treating it like it was a huge game with a huge audience.” Pat’s professional career started as a fill-in on a Thunder radio broadcast while still a student at TCNJ. His cousin Mary had worked for the Thunder and tipped him off that the team needed an announcer for a day. A minor league broadcasting internship with the Reading Fightin’ Phils followed.

3rd inning: Called up to the Big Leagues

Tom announced games for the Thunder for seven seasons. In 2001, the Phillies hired him as a radio broadcaster. He left in 2006 for two years to do the same for the Mets, but rejoined the Phillies in 2008 and became their lead TV announcer when legendary broadcaster Harry Kalas died in 2009. “I had the greatest opportunity to be part of the fabric of an amazing sports town,” he says. After TCNJ, Pat spent five years as a radio broadcaster for a Phillies minor league affiliate, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. His minor league work was so well-regarded that he was even asked to cover for his dad on a few televised Phillies games in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, Pat was hired as a Mets radio broadcaster. He hosts all the pre- and postgame shows and sometimes calls the play-by-play. “It’s the honor of a lifetime,” says Pat, who knows that hundreds of broadcasters apply for the handful of jobs available each year. “There was a standard set going back to the Mets’ first season in 1962. Every day, I work to maintain that level of excellence.”

4th inning: Playing ball

The work that goes into each broadcast, Tom says, is “pretty intense.” He’s at the ballpark hours before the first pitch, talking to players and meeting with the manager about gameday lineups. He studies the notes prepared by the team’s public relations department, scrolls through social media and pertinent sports websites, and looks at sponsorship scripts he’s asked to read. During the game, Tom confers with members of his TV production team, who update him on graphics they might show or statistics that might be worth mentioning. “For Tom to be able to master the craft of describing the game and then also have the personality to be able to weave his knowledge into a conversation or the flow of a game is great,” says Howie Rose, a longtime radio commentor who worked with Tom during his years with the Mets. “And so I was really impressed with that from the very beginning.”

Pat goes through a similar regimen. “Preparation is the number one thing,” he says. “If you’re not prepared, people are going to know.” Pat has to be descriptive, since he’s serving as the listener’s eyes. Tom says that he admires his son’s way with words: “He’s way wittier than I am. I don’t have the wordsmith ability that he does.” “You’ve got to be having fun,” Pat says. “Because if you’re not having fun, I guarantee you, the listeners are not, either.”

Both McCarthys have become part of the tight-knit group of sports broadcasters, especially those in the Philadelphia and New York area. Many broadcasters have worked with both Tom and Pat at some point. “The two of them have a lot of similarities in their personality and in their sense of humor, which meshes well with me and our booth,” Rose says. Former Phillies first baseman John Kruk, who is on the Phillies broadcast team with Tom and has also worked with Pat, says: “They make life easy when you do games with them.” But it is an off-air trait that Pat admires in his dad and tries to emulate the most: “I watch him learn everybody’s name and shake everybody’s hand,” Pat says, noting that this includes the players, coaches, and fans.

5th inning: Crowd pleasers

Tom estimates that, in his career, he has announced 6,000 baseball games. But his most memorable call was in 2010 when Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay threw a perfect game against the Marlins. Caught up in the magnitude of the moment, and the rarity of the accomplishment, he yelled: “The 1-2 pitch. Hit toward third. Castro has it, spins, fires … a perfect game! Roy Halladay has thrown the second perfect game in Philadelphia Phillies history. He faces 27 batters. He retires alllllllll 27!”

Pat’s favorite post-game interview was with Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins on the same night his dad passed him the mic in 2022. Hoskins was one of the longest-tenured players on the team and had been through some rough seasons. His emotions came out in the interview. “I got Rhys to curse, laugh, and cry in the same interview,” Pat says.

6th inning: Heart of the order

In the lineup of people integral to the McCarthys’ success, the team MVP would be Meg McCarthy. She was instrumental in managing the household for Pat, his brother Thomas ’19, and his sisters Maggie ’21, and Kerri ’25. “[Mom] raised four kids(2) and got us all where we needed to go,” says Pat. “She was a rock star then and continues to be a rock star to this day.”

She was also there for Tom. “We took a lot of chances,” says Tom. “Not only with my ventures, but also with the kids’ dreams. She has been there to support, lift, and also catch them when they fall.” Both of Tom’s sons have followed him into baseball. Thomas works in player relations for a baseball equipment company and broadcast games for the Thunder (now a summer college baseball team) last summer. His sister Maggie followed Meg’s path and is now a teacher; his other sister, Kerri, graduated from TCNJ in May and is headed to grad school.

7th inning: A word from our sponsor

A few times during a Mets broadcast, listeners will hear a commercial for The College of New Jersey, read by Pat: “TCNJ has meant so much to me in terms of where I’m at.

My best friends are from TCNJ. My wife (Emily ’18) went to TCNJ. It’s indoctrinated in our family’s DNA.” Pat appreciates the chance to connect his work with TCNJ. “Giving back with a 30-second read is such a small portion of the debt that I owe to them.”

8th inning: A friendly rivalry

When the Phillies and Mets play each other, Tom and Pat often drive to the ballpark together and have the kind of father-son time they rarely get these days. The 2024 baseball season was great for both of them, as the Mets-Phillies rivalry included a trip to London (both brought their wives and toured the city together) and a playoff matchup. Though the teams are rivals, that doesn’t spill over to family relationships. “It was just so much fun to experience together,” Pat says. The Mets beat the Phillies to advance to the League Championship Series, but Pat didn’t rub it in. “He sensed my disappointment,” Tom says. “But I was excited for him to get to broadcast on a bigger stage in the next round.”

9th inning: The winning team

Tom loves that Pat followed him into a broadcasting career. “I wish every parent could have the experience of a child who shares their interests as much as Pat shares mine,” says Tom.

Would the “grand slam” be that the two broadcast side-by-side for the same team someday? “I think that any opportunity you have to make more memories is worth doing,” says Pat. “To share a mic, to share a passion, is the ultimate gift.”

Photos: Peter Murphy