Colorado football coach Deion Sanders told his team about the time he doused baseball broadcaster Tim McCarver with water in October 1992, calling it “wrong” but also saying “God had my back” about it.
Sanders brought up the infamous incident at a recent team meeting in Boulder, as documented by Reach The People Media, one of Sanders’ favored YouTube channels. Sanders told his team it was an example of being able to go back to a “dark place” in your past. He said, “God allows you to go into it so that you can understand who He is and his power and how He can bring you out of nothing and turn it into something.”
Sanders, 58, was playing baseball for the Atlanta Braves when he doused McCarver with tubs of water in the postgame locker room after the Braves won the National League Championship Series that year. He said it was revenge for comments McCarver previously made about Sanders that described Sanders as selfish for leaving the Braves to also play in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons. The memory resurfaced for Sanders recently after apparently being asked about it for an upcoming film about Sanders on Netflix.
“My mother had told me this gentleman who just broadcast a game is talking about you real bad,” Sanders told his players. “And, you know, when mama talked to us like that, you act. I’m a Florida boy. Like we act immediately. So after we won the playoffs, I threw two buckets of water, which was wrong. Two buckets of water on him and doused him and doused him and doused him, and dousing them until he, you know, got upset about it. But I was thinking that he should have known his craft.”
Deion Sanders said ‘God had my back’ after Tim McCarver incident
He blamed McCarver for not doing his “homework” and not knowing Sanders’ contract with the Braves had been set to expire earlier that summer before he worked out a deal that allowed him to help the baseball team in its playoff push. Instead of being portrayed by McCarver as selfish, he said he thought it should have been portrayed as a “wonderful gesture” by him to continue playing with the team.
After dousing McCarver, the Braves advanced to the World Series to play the Toronto Blue Jays. Sanders played well against the Blue Jays, especially against Blue Jays pitcher David Cone. He suggested his success in that series was proof that God has his back about the McCarver incident. He hit .533 overall in that series with five stolen bases, but the Braves lost in six games.
“That hurt,” Sanders said of McCarver’s comments. “That hurt my mom. That hurt me. But lo and behold, God had my back. Why would I say God had my back? Because the opposing team was the Toronto Blue Jays that we played in the World Series had a pitcher on the team named David Cone. David Cone was a great pitcher. He should be in Hall of Fame. But David Cone, my lifelong average against him was about .600.”
Deion Sanders wanted to win MVP so Tim McCarver could interview him
Sanders said he would have been named World Series MVP if the Braves had won.
“But we lost,” Sanders said. “But I wanted to win so bad because that gentleman that was naysaying me (McCarver) would have had to interview me for being the MVP. And that’s what I wanted, but it didn’t happen that way. But we got into it.”
McCarver died in 2023 at age 81. After Sanders doused him with water in 1992, he confronted Sanders. “You’re a real man, Deion,” McCarver told him. “I’ll say that.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: [email protected]
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Deion Sanders tells team about Tim McCarver incident in 1992 MLB playoffs
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