January 8-14, 2004

pretzel logic

Believe

by Howard Altman

The summer of 1973 was a huge turning point in the life of a shy, skinny 13-year-old growing up in suburban Lawn Guyland.

I lived and died with my beloved New York Metropolitans and wanted nothing more than to play for the team when I grew up. But back then I lacked the self-confidence to succeed at the game I loved, despite the endless hours throwing and catching and swinging a bat in the backyard with my buddies, and on the field with my teammates.

As school let out and my family prepared for a trip to Europe, the Amazins were wallowing in last place when the screwball with the screwball uttered the most profound three words baseball has ever heard.

"Ya gotta believe!" said Frank Edwin McGraw and the Mets listened, coming from 12 games behind the division-leading Cubs in early August to win the National League East in one of the most, well, amazing turnarounds in sports history.

I listened too, and as I wandered around Europe begging my parents for copies of the International Herald Tribune so I could follow this resurrection, McGraw's mantra became my own.

Ever since that summer, in every hard scrape I ever had, I could hear Tug and remember the smile, the energy, the glove slapping and how it all propelled one of the greatest underdog efforts of all time.

His words got me through many a tough time and helped me succeed.

"Ya gotta believe!" I told myself every time I needed to believe.

And I still do.

The news of Tugger's death came to me from, of all people, Mayor John Street's spokesperson, Barbara Grant.

It was during the mayor's grand inaugural ball, as the big-money folk were dining upstairs at the Convention Center for $5,000 a couple on Venetian wafers, lobster bisque and grilled veal tenderloins.

"Did you hear about Tug?" Grant, downstairs with the rest of us lowly wage earners, asked in an effort to seek confirmation of something she'd heard from a TV reporter.

She didn't have to say what she heard, because McGraw was battling brain cancer and the only thing you could hear that would be important enough to mention at such an occasion was the very worst news.

Like Grant, too busy to have turned on a television or radio or checked the Web, I hadn't heard until then.

Though not surprising, the news was still shocking and hit me with a jolt.

Before my eyes welled up, I raised my Jack on the rocks and smiled.

"You and I are probably the only two people in here who remember Ya Gotta Believe from '73," I said to fellow New York native Grant.

From that point on, I was no longer feeling very festive and wandered the big room half-heartedly waiting for the mayor to make his victory speech so I could get out of there and go home after a long day that had, until Grant's somber news flash, been most remarkable for the hilarious City Council catfight during the morning's investiture ceremony at the Kimmel Center's Perelman Auditorium (the most raucous event in that room, I am told, since the Apollo Theater's Amateur Night).

I had another drink or three and was slouched at an empty table, listening to Mary Mason, the evening's MC, make love to herself with a stream of self-referential consciousness when Street surprised me.

He started his speech by confirming that Tugger had indeed passed. And then he launched into a short soliloquy about how much McGraw, who closed out the Royals in '80, meant to Philadelphia and how much we should try to live Ya Gotta Believe!

I got up, walked over to the stage and was deeply moved that Street was so moved.

Until he started burbling about how happy two recently hospitalized police officers were when he went to see them and how grateful he was for all the money people gave him.

So much for the memories. To Street, Tug -- like the cops -- was just another political prop.

The last time I saw Tug was on Sept. 28, in the Phillies' locker room after the last game ever at the Vet.

He was talking about his battle with cancer and the joy of being there on that night to a throng of reporters. I was scribbling notes and then the reporters dispersed one by one until it was just me and McGraw.

I wanted so very badly to thank him for his inspiration, to tell him how much Ya Gotta Believe changed my life.

But I felt silly, a grown man standing before his boyhood idol, in a place that reduces me to a kid wanting to be a baseball player when I grow up, so I merely wished him good luck and we went our separate ways.

Now he is gone.

So thank you, Tug.

I always will believe.