Charles Louis "Clem" McCarthy (September 9, 1882 – June 4, 1962) was an American sportscaster and public address announcer. He also narrated Pathe News's RKO newsreels. He was known for his gravelly voice and dramatic style, a "whiskey tenor" as sports announcer and executive David J. Halberstam has called it.
Early years
McCarthy was born in East Bloomfield, New York. His father was a dealer and auctioneer of horses, and with him the young McCarthy often went to horse fairs and race tracks across the United States. Although he wanted to be a jockey, he grew too big and instead began reporting on horse writing in Southern California in the 1920s.
Career
As noted in Halberstam's book Sports on New York Radio, McCarthy is considered one of horse racing's great callers, paving the way for later well-known announcers from Cawood Ledford to Dave Johnson. He was the first public-address announcer at a major American racetrack, Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Illinois, where a public address system was installed in 1927.
McCarthy is also known for miscalling the 1947 Preakness Stakes when a crowd standing on a platform blocked his view of the far turn, just as two horses with similar silks switched places. (Chic Anderson, another great track announcer, made a similar mistake in the 1975 Kentucky Derby.) As with Anderson later, McCarthy's quick and humble admission of the mistake helped the criticism blow over. Years after McCarthy's death, sports film-maker Bud Greenspan compared the audio of the race call with newsreel film of the race, and discovered that McCarthy had stated "and the crowd blocks me for a moment" at the exact point where the two horses had switched places.
McCarthy's career also included work at local radio stations, beginning at KYW in Chicago in 1928. From there, he went to WMCA in New York City. In 1987, McCarthy was inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame along with veteran ABC Sports announcer Jim McKay.
A long-playing record, Clem McCarthy, the Voice of American Sports, was produced in 1962.