1981 Topps Home Team Photos 5x7 #NNO Tug McGraw

The first time I saw Tug McGraw's 1974 Topps card, I thought someone was playing a joke on me. There was no way Tugger had once pitched for the Mets. Are you sure about this? (And now you're telling me Steve Carlton once pitched for the Cardinals? This is crazy talk!)

Sure enough, as confirmed by the back of his 1981 Topps card (and I definitely checked at the time), Tug pitched for the Mets from 1965 until 1974. In the early '80s, I had a Phillies binder in which I kept all my Phillies cards organized in Enor pages. The front of the binder was reserved for the pages containing my favorite Phillies. Until Bob Dernier came along, the front of the binder was occupied by either Mike Schmidt or Tug McGraw as I could never pick my favorite between the two.