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Everyone has a Tug McGraw story.
There was a time at spring training — just a week and a half before he was diagnosed with cancer — when Tug didn't like the way Randy Wolf shouted, "I got it!" during a fielding drill. It appeared to Tug that Wolf was handling himself a little too business-like for his tastes. Sure, it was just a drill on a typical Tuesday morning in Clearwater where not much was happening, but to Tug, Wolfie just didn't seem to be into it enough.
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| Tug McGraw leaps into the air after striking out Willie Wilson on Oct. 21, 1980. (AP) | |
"Is that all you got?" the fun-time reliever shouted while running from third base toward Wolf. "All you have to do is be loud."
McGraw then stood on the mound screaming, "I got it! I got it!" demonstrating one aspect of the game that set him apart during his playing days. Certainly, there was no one in baseball would could match McGraw's emotion.
On that day, McGraw certainly made an impression. After his demonstration, every player tried to scream louder than the one before, but none could match McGraw's vocal prowess. Brandon Duckworth came pretty close. So did Jose Mesa. In fact, Wolf even improved his volume as the drill became less about fielding and more about who could scream as loud as crazy lefty standing near third who was reveling in the madness he created. But perhaps even most importantly, McGraw's point was properly made:
If you're going to do something, have fun.
You're damn right.
It's pretty fair to say that no one had more fun playing baseball than Tug McGraw, who died from cancer on Monday with his family at his bedside near Nashville, Tenn. Actually, that might not be fair to say at all. We're probably shortchanging Tug more than a little bit. After all, Tug was a guy who — clad in a black leather jacket, of course — told New York to "stick it" in front of 100,000 people at JFK Stadium the day after the Phillies won the World Series. Of course Tug had to be the center of that party, too. He got to throw the last pitch, leap as high as an Irish guy from California could before summoning the entire Delaware Valley to pile on top.
Fun? That's not even close.
Tug once said that if the FDA ever came into the Phillies clubhouse during the 1980 season, it would "shut down baseball."
For those of us who grew up living and dying with every pitch during the Phillies' golden age, McGraw was the one most like us. With his nervousness and neurosis manifesting itself with slaps against his thigh with his gloved hand at the end of an inning, or taps on his chest after a loud drive slipped foul, he expressed himself in the way any eight-year old would. When we said "Phew! That was close," Tug was saying the same thing on the mound in front of everyone.
But that was just Tug style. He wasn't cool and detached like Steve Carlton or Mike Schmidt, he felt what we were feeling. He knew the magnitude of a situation but was smart enough to keep it all in perspective. It was only baseball, after all. It's supposed to be fun.
When asked what he was going to do with the money he received for making it to the World Series with the Mets in 1973, McGraw said: "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish whiskey. The other 10 percent I'll probably waste."
After escaping from a tough, late-inning jam against the Big Red Machine's Joe Morgan, George Foster, Tony Perez and Johnny Bench with his typical aplomb, Tug was asked by a reporter how he was able to stay so cool. "Well," he said. "Ten million years from now, when the sun burns out and the Earth is just a frozen snowball hurtling through space, nobody's going to care whether or not I got this guy out."
Yes, everyone has a Tug McGraw story.
"In almost 60 years, Tug got in about 110 years worth of living," teammate Bob Boone said. "There was no one I know who lived more than Tug McGraw. Those of us that really knew Tug will always be telling Tug stories."
Even the people who barely knew him will tell great stories. How many bars in towns across the National League did he spend nights in? How about in this city? Geez, I can't remember the first bar in Philadelphia I stepped into that didn't have a picture of Tug above the bar or door from a recent visit. Hell, my wife's grandmother even has a Tug McGraw story. She even saved the snapshots from some bleary-eyed meeting in Florida during the late 1970s.
Even though the pictures are out of focus, Tug has a huge grin plastered across his face and his arms around a couple of old ladies.
Hey, there were no velvet ropes with Tug. Everyone was welcome.
Why not? After all, this was a guy who added a smiley face at the end of his name when he signed autographs. He was a guy who used his barbering skills to give free haircuts to poor people in New York's Lower East Side. He wrote a children's book and a comic strip called "Scroogie." He announced his retirement on Valentine's Day of 1985 with the quip that "baseball stole my heart, but I was never a jilted lover."
Tug says he liked his 1958 car "because it plays old music."
He reported in the team's 1980 yearbook that his least favorite city was: "I don't know. I haven't been there yet." His biggest turn-on: "Larry Bowa (because) he makes unbelievable plays," while his biggest turn-off was: "Larry Bowa because he makes unbelievable noise."
Tug voraciously studied books about Babe Ruth and Ben Franklin and loved Elvis so much that he dressed and spoke like the King as a tribute on the anniversary of his death.
Those who know say his brother Hank is really wacky.
Yeah, we all remember watching Tug strike out Willie Wilson on Oct. 21, 1980, but it's particularly funny to note that his incentive to get Wilson out wasn't winning the only World Series in franchise history, it was avoiding a dire fate.
"When the police horses and dogs came out in the top of the ninth and ringed the field, I saw this enormous horse take a huge dump on the warning track. I said, 'Uh oh, I better not do with this game what that horse just did.' "
There are just so many stories and so many things to remember.
Like the time that kid born in the '70s was standing just outside of the visitor's dugout at McKechnie Field in Bradenton, Fla. before the Phillies took on the Pirates in the first spring training game of 2003. Suddenly, Larry Bowa walked two feet away and shouted, "Tug," with his arm in a throwing position. Without words and an errant throw away from a solid beaning, I watched Tug and Larry Bowa loosen up before batting practice while Mike Schmidt chatted with Harry Kalas a few feet to the left.
What, was Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny on the way, too?
Sure, we can talk and talk and talk about Tug for days. Doesn't seem like just yesterday that he struck out Willie Wilson? Guys like Tug are supposed to be retired. They aren't supposed to die. He was a guy who had time for everyone and was having the time of his life with you. He was one of us.
As the great Red Smith wrote in 1974: "He is a beautiful guy, a sensitive, emotional, demonstrative, genuine, outgoing, affectionate, exuberant, sad and sometimes irresponsible human being."
But he was also, as Smith wrote,"left-handed and lighthearted and not necessarily more predictable than the screwball he throws, but he is no dummy."
How could he be dumb? He was too busy making us all have fun.