In honor of Major League Baseball's 2019 Opening Season, we are sharing stories about baseball's legendary screwball- Tug McGraw. Heartfelt stories and radio interviews that profoundly impacted his life. Source and Photo Credit: Sports Illustrated
The Uncommon Life of Hank McGraw
While his little brother Tug won fame and fortune and two world series, a former bonus baby chose a path without compromise or material rewards. Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated
"I left behind the interstate, then the highway, then the country road. I turned left at the brown-and-white horses and the black-and-white goat. A dentist in Northern California had told me about a hermit who lived here, on the outskirts of Napa.I headed down a long private lane cloaked in laurel and plum and fig trees. A mystical man, the dentist said, tucked away from the world, without telephone or television.I parked beside an old dented truck with a fractured windshield and a cobwebbed dashboard. Wyatt Earp with hair to his ass, another man described him. A drill-sergeant hippie.I gazed at the tiny white cottage. The recluse inside existed so far from fortune and fame, so distant from mainstream and madness—and so near them.
One of his brothers, Tug McGraw, helped pitch both the New York Mets and the Philadelphia
Phillies to world championships. His nephew Tim McGraw had six platinum CDs and an even shinier wife, Faith Hill. His other brother, Dennis McGraw, recently pumped four bullets into a man with a short-barrel .22 rifle. I got out of the car. There stood Hank McGraw, one of the Mets' first bonus babies." Sport Illustrated Writer, Gary Smith
CLICK HERE, to read full story in Sports Illustrated's Vault
Hank McGraw to throw Out Opening Pitch for the Mixed Nutts
On Monday April 8th, Hank McGraw will be throwing out the first pitch for Tug's Mixed Nutts. An all veterans softball team who resides at the Veterans Home of California, Yountville. The team plays on the historical Borman Field. A field that both Hank and Tug played on.
What's unique about this team, they range in ages from 57 to 93 years young. They play in replicated jerseys from the Home's original team that played in 1914. Click here, to learn more about the Nutts.