From Tug
McGraw’s biography in the book:
A reliever like Tug McGraw would be an October workhorse in today’s game, but he
made just one appearance in the 1969 postseason. That appearance, however, was
crucial for both the Mets and McGraw. Jerry Koosman couldn’t make it out of the
fifth after being spotted a big early lead in Game Two of the inaugural National
League Championship Series, and McGraw took over for Ron Taylor to start the
seventh inning in Atlanta. He threw three shutout innings for the save in the
11?6 victory. It was that outing that made McGraw finally feel that he belonged
in the major leagues. Although McGraw didn’t get to pitch in the World
Series—Mets starters recorded all but eight outs in Games Two through Five—that
postseason was the turning point of Tug’s career.“Thanks
to that NLCS appearance, I was convinced that I was not only a viable major
leaguer, but one who could excel in the future,” he wrote years later with Don
Yaeger in Ya Gotta Believe! “Everything changed for me in 1969, the year
we turned out to be goddamned amazing, all right.”
McGraw became known as a nonconformist who took life as it came. He went to Vietnam with several major leaguers on a goodwill tour, where he was slapped by bullpen mate Ron Taylor for smoking marijuana. Back in New York, Tug sprained his ankle on a toboggan run with teammate and fellow free spirit Ron Swoboda; McGraw came up with the excuse that he hurt his leg slipping on ice while taking out the trash.
And he loved giving haircuts. He cut the hair of transients in the Bowery and Mets icons. “I had him on Kiner’s Korner after a ballgame that he was instrumental in,” Ralph Kiner recalled. “He was in the service, he was in the Marines, and he cut hair, so he cut my hair on the show. It took about four months for me to grow my hair back.”
$21 + s/h