The Phillies are back, and Tom McCarthy is back with them on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Once again, Phillies fans will need Apple TV+ to stream some games. but Peacock's deal to stream MLB games has quietly expired.
Tom McCarthy’s hectic schedule as an announcer takes him from calling NFL games for CBS straight to college basketball, where he just wrapped up broadcasting the first round of the NCAA Tournament on TV for the first time.
But there’s nothing he’d rather be doing than calling Phillies games.
“I am a guy who loves baseball,” McCarthy said. “If I had my choice, I’d play baseball before anything else. And this is the next-best thing.”
McCarthy is entering his 17th season with the Phillies on TV, and he’ll be in the booth Friday on NBC10 alongside John Kruk to call the team’s opening-day matchup against the rival Atlanta Braves, which was pushed back a day because of rain. Throughout the season, McCarthy will be joined by a familiar rotation of analysts that includes former Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., former MLB catcher Ben Davis, and Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt.
McCarthy began calling Phillies games on the radio in 2001, and after leaving to broadcast New York Mets games for a couple of years, he returned to Philadelphia in 2007 to join a TV booth that featured the voice of legendary announcer Harry Kalas. McCarthy was expected to replace Kalas after he retired, but instead was thrust into the lead announcing role when Kalas collapsed in the booth in 2009 and later died at the hospital.
It took time for some fans to warm up to McCarthy, who didn’t look at himself as replacing a legend.
“I never really looked at it as following in his footsteps. I just looked at it that I was the next guy,” McCarthy said.
Coming from radio, McCarthy quickly realized doing play-by-play on TV meant shifting from being the star of the broadcast to more of a point guard, setting up his color commentators for success. Amaro credits McCarthy as much an anyone for his successful turn as a TV analyst, calling him “part of the fabric of the team.” And Kruk, always entertaining, has blossomed alongside McCarthy, who affords the former Phillies first baseman the freedom to slide into tangents, such as his yet-to-be-fulfilled promise to climb the St. Louis Arch.
“You just have to get back to the game when the game is really important,” McCarthy said. “There are times when it’s a 10-2 game, and we go off the rails and it’s funny. That’s going to happen during a long season. We don’t take ourselves seriously, but we take the game and the job very seriously.”
McCarthy’s schedule keeps him in the booth for the entire year, despite no longer calling basketball games at St. Joseph’s or football games at Rutgers and Princeton. The 55-year-old said calling other sports keeps him sharp as an announcer, as does watching his son, Pat, grow as a radio broadcaster of the New York Mets. His other son, Tommy, is a professional ballplayer in the Frontier League and was with McCarthy as his stat guy during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
“It’s a great life,” McCarthy said. “And it’s just getting better. Broadcasting is getting better, technology’s better, opportunities are more vast. I’m excited for them to be able to do it.”
First pitch for opening day is scheduled for 3:05 p.m. Friday on NBC10. Ten Phillies games are scheduled to air this season on NBC10, and they also will air in Spanish on Telemundo 62.
NBC Sports Philadelphia will televise 131 of the Phillies’ 162 games, with 10 on NBC Sports Philadelphia+, although that could change as the season goes along.
On the radio, longtime Phillies announcer Scott Franzke returns for his 19th season and 18th as the lead play-by-play voice. He’ll be joined on WIP-FM (94.1) once again by veteran announcer Larry Andersen, who will call most home games this season after pulling back from a full-time schedule a few years ago.
Returning to call the rest of the schedule alongside Franzke will be former Phillies shortstop Kevin Stocker, who is in his second season as the second analyst in the booth.
» READ MORE: Five Phillies questions for opening day (and pitching depth is one of them)
Phillies will play in London in June on Fox and ESPN
A new wrinkle to the Phillies’ schedule is a trip to London in June for a two-game series against the New York Mets at London Stadium. It’s the third MLB series in London, where baseball has focused on growing the sport’s popularity and enlisted Phillies second baseman Chase Utley as its ambassador to Europe.
The first of the two games, on June 8, will air on Fox as part of an exclusive MLB package of regionalized Saturday games. Adam Amin will call the game alongside former St. Louis Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright, who is making his debut this season with Fox as an analyst.
The second London game on June 9 will be televised on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, returning for its 35th season. Back again in the booth is play-by-play announcer Karl Ravech alongside analysts David Cone and Eduardo Pérez. Buster Olney also will be back to handle reporting from the stands.
Phillies fans will still need Apple TV+, but not Peacock ... for now
Friday Night Baseball is back on Apple TV+ this season, meaning fans will now have to fork over $9.99 a month to watch at least two Phillies games scheduled to stream on the platform — May 3 against the San Francisco Giants and June 21 against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Apple TV+ does offer a free seven-day trial, but there’s another workaround. Thanks to Apple’s deal with DirecTV, the Phillies games will be televised at bars and restaurants that already use the satellite service.
Apple is bringing back both of its broadcast crews from last season, which include pitcher-turned-analyst Dontrelle Willis, who signed with the Phillies in 2012 but made just three Grapefruit League appearances. Also returning is Apple’s pre- and postgame show, hosted by Lauren Gardner alongside Xavier Scruggs and Russell Dorsey.
As for Peacock, its two-year deal to stream an early game on Sundays quietly expired after last season, and so far no new streaming deal has been announced. An NBC spokesperson said the status remained up in the air. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts were paired on the golf course earlier this month at the Seminole Pro-Member event in Juno Beach, Fla.
There’s one streaming hiccup for fans. The Phillies’ April 9 game against the St. Louis Cardinals will stream exclusively on the NBC Sports app, meaning you’ll have to log in with your cable subscription to watch. With both the Sixers and Flyers in action that day, NBC Sports Philadelphia just didn’t have the room to squeeze the game on TV.