Tim McCarver often would say that being a grandparent was “the greatest racket there is.”

But during the pandemic and quarantines of 2020, McCarver couldn’t be around his two grandchildren, Leigh and Beau, for months and months and months. By phone that May, McCarver said, “It’s torturing. It’s torture. ... Family means so much to me — I don’t know how to put that into words. … My grandson was on the baseball team. Nobody was hurt more than he was when the season was called. ... He hates it that he can’t play. Hates it. It’s tough on him, like it is tough on every grandchild, every child in the country. It’s crushing.”

The next year, baseball was back across the country — and fans were back at baseball games. On August 22, 2021, I walked into the Busch Stadium media entrance. There, on a couch in the lobby, was Tim McCarver … and his grandson. Neither lived in St. Louis. They had traveled in for a game. He introduced me to Beau. McCarver beamed. He was in his element — the ballpark, the Cardinals, his grandson. He was in heaven.

McCarver died on Thursday. The great catcher was 81. His legacy is that of a beautiful human who loved and sure lived. He twice was a World Series champion, a Sports Illustrated cover boy, a revered backstop to two Hall of Fame hurlers, a Hall of Famer himself as a broadcaster, a father and, of course, a grandfather.

He was eloquent, yet folksy. He was a big name, yet down-to-earth. He loved being a Cardinal the way Cardinals fans love the Cardinals. He just really was nice.

The most recent time I saw him was the most-recent opening day. That 2022 afternoon, he looked resplendent and revered in his red jacket — McCarver was elected into the Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2017. He was 80 that day, sharp as a curveball. He held court and shared a humbling story about then-Cardinal Roger Maris from 1967.

As it went, McCarver had such a brutal at-bat one game, he tried to break his helmet in the dugout.

“But it wouldn’t break — I wasn’t strong enough!” McCarver said with a chuckle. “So in those days, guys smoked. I go down deep in the tunnel in Pittsburgh. I needed the room — I took a fungo (bat) and started pounding on the thing. Roger is there smoking, and he said: ‘You know how many people you’re going to affect if you get hurt?’

“The light went on. It was the way he put it. ‘Do you know how many people you’re going to affect?’ I said, ‘I never thought of it like that.’ He said, ‘It’s your responsibility to think of it like that. That’s how important you are to this team.’ And he was right.’”

In the 1967 season, McCarver finished second in the MVP voting. And the Cardinals, of course, won the World Series.

Now, for those in Philadelphia, McCarver is forever connected to the Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton. McCarver once joked that he and Carlton should be buried in the same cemetery — separated by 60 feet, six inches.

But for those in St. Louis, McCarver is Bob Gibson‘s catcher.

From age 18 to 81, McCarver’s admiration for Gibson was genuine. He loved that man. McCarver was behind the plate for so many of Gibson’s iconic moments, from Game 7 of the 1964 World Series to Game 7 of the 1967 World Series to Game 1 of the 1968 World Series, when Gibson struck out 17 batters in a shutout win. Their friendship transcended race and also set an example to Missourians in the 1960s — if Gibson and McCarver could be great friends, why couldn’t other Blacks and whites?

They remained friends for decades, up to Gibson’s passing in 2020. In 2016, McCarver and Gibson took a trip. They went to the Bordeaux region of France, along with Gibson’s wife, Wendy, and McCarver’s close friend, Julie Levitan.

“It was the most fun I’ve ever had on a trip,” Bob Gibson told the Post-Dispatch in 2017. “Usually when I go on a trip, it’s for working purposes. This was one of the few times I went on a vacation — drank a lot of wine, had a lot of good food. And I would have to say it was the trip of my life. I don’t think I’ve had anything that I’ve enjoyed that much.”

It’s just such a lovely image — the old pitcher and his catcher, drinking wine and exploring France while swapping stories like they were in a clubhouse 50 years prior.

They visited Pétrus, which McCarver called the “Hall of Fame” of vineyards. They were audience to a private presentation. Afterward, a Pétrus winemaker showed up with, of all things, a St. Louis Cardinals hat. The winemaker fawned over the great Gibson, asking him to autograph the hat.

He did … and then pointed to his old catcher.

“He played too!” Gibson exclaimed.

“It was funny, we laughed,” McCarver shared in 2017. “I was kind of like his valet in that scenario.”

A few years ago, my wife and I had our first child — and my parents became grandparents for the first time. So, I texted McCarver, because I wanted to share with him that my parents could now fully understand what he meant by “the greatest racket there is.”