Listed for your consideration is a very rare RCA Service sweepstakes Classic 7" vinyl record released in 1952 and narrated by sportscaster and considered to be one of horse racings greatest callers, Clem McCarthy. This record was only sent out to approximately 500 RCA distributor salesman for a promotion that was held in 1952 during the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Label number is E2-CW-2303/4.

The record is in overall excellent condition.

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As Halberstam's book Sports on New York Radio notes, McCarthy is considered one of horse racing's great callers, setting the stage for well-known voices from Cawood Ledford to Dave Johnson. He was the first public-address announcer at a major American racetrack, Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Installation of a public address system there in 1927 provided that opportunity.

In addition to being a race caller for racetracks and NBC Radio, he was a top boxing announcer, too. His most often replayed boxing sportscast is probably his NBC radio call of the 1938 Joe Louis-Max Schmeling rematch at Yankee Stadium

Louis, right and left to the head, a left to the jaw, a right to the head, and [referee Art] Donovan is watching carefully. Louis measures him. Right to the body, a left up to the jaw, and Schmeling is down! The count is five! Five, six, seven, eight -- the men are in the ring! The fight is over, on a technical knock out. Max Schmeling is beaten in one round!

Later that same year he called the famous Seabiscuit / War Admiral match race, including this phrase in the final stretch run, as Seabiscuit shocked the horse racing world by outrunning the heavily favored War Admiral:

McCarthy is also known for having mis-called 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, one of McCarthy's most famous descendants as a 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 eventually 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.