An autographed church bulletin tells the story of ‘faith-filled’ Tug McGraw’s friendship with a priest

For 23 years, Phil Shank has kept an old church bulletin in a lockbox at his parents’ house. It’s not the most expensive thing he owns, but in his mind, it is one of the most valuable.

On the cover is the name of Shank’s parish, Our Lady of Consolation, and the date, June 2, 2002. Inside, at the bottom right-hand corner of the third page, is Tug McGraw’s signature, next to a hymn.

Shank, who was 13 at the time, remembers feeling surprised when he learned the former Phillie would be speaking to a Catholic youth ministry. McGraw was known for a lot of things — his humor, his wit, his screwball — but not for his faith.

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That didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Long before his 19-year playing career, the left-handed pitcher went to a Catholic high school, St. Vincent Ferrer in Vallejo, Calif. After he retired from professional baseball, he attended Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church, in Fairmount.

But perhaps the best encapsulation of his piety was in his friendship with a local parish priest, the Rev. Victor Eschbach. They met in 1991, when Eschbach approached McGraw about making a donation to Catholic Life 2000, a fundraising campaign run through the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Eschbach wanted McGraw to pledge $100,000 over five years. McGraw balked and told him to “talk to his wife’s divorce lawyer.” They eventually settled on $50,000, with a catch.

“I said, ‘Tug, let’s talk about sacrifice,’” Eschbach recalled. “‘I’m letting you off the hook for $50,000, so I want you to work with me on my committee. To go on these visits and help raise money.’”

McGraw agreed, and over the next six months, the pitcher and the priest traveled throughout Philadelphia and its surrounding counties. The fundraising campaign provided ample time for them to get to know each other, and the two men realized they had more in common than they originally thought.

Both were born in 1944. Both had big personalities. Both loved baseball, cigarettes, and God. All together, it was enough to spark a friendship. So, after the fundraising campaign ended, McGraw and Eschbach continued to meet up.

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About once a week, they’d go out to eat at the Spaghetti Warehouse on Spring Garden Street or Cavanaugh’s Restaurant at 23rd and Chestnut. McGraw would usually call up the priest and say he’d been in “Egyptland.” Eschbach quickly learned what that meant.

“I’d hear his confession on our way downtown,” he said, “and we’d have dinner.”

They stayed in touch, and in 2002, Eschbach asked McGraw if he could speak to a group of high school seniors at Our Lady of Consolation’s parish center, where he was the head priest.

This was an annual tradition for the church in Parkesburg, Chester County. Sometimes the speakers were members of the military; one time, Sister Mary Scullion was invited to give a presentation. But it was never a former athlete — until McGraw.

He showed up in a Hawaiian shirt with a grin on his face. The longtime Phillie went to Mass with the students, and afterward, they ate hoagies and listened to him talk about his career. The event was meant to be motivational, so McGraw discussed the impact of positive thinking (with some jokes thrown in).

Shank was able to go because his brother was one of those high school seniors.

“He repeated the line that he gave in [1975],” Shank said. “‘Ninety percent [of my salary] I’ll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other 10 percent I’ll probably waste.’

“Hearing that in church, at 13 years old, was pretty damn funny. It was also nice looking to Father Eschbach, knowing that he appreciated the humor. That even though this was typically a solemn place, it was all right to let your guard down for this kind of thing.”

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McGraw finished his speech by setting up a projector and walking the teenagers through the last three outs of the 1980 World Series. He went pitch by pitch, ending with the fastball that struck out Willie Wilson, or as he called it, “the slowest one he’s ever thrown in his life.”

After it was over, McGraw made small talk and signed autographs. Shank didn’t have a baseball with him, so he decided to pivot to his church bulletin. More than two decades later, Shank is now 36 and working in insurance litigation management in Lansdale. That bulletin is intact and still with his parents; a one-of-a-kind artifact to capture a one-of-a-kind man.

“It’s becoming a more faded memory, especially with two little children and a busy life,” Shank said. “But looking at it can really bring me back into that moment.

“It’s funny that all these seemingly minor things transpired [to allow] a couple kids to get to meet a baseball hero, who happened to be friends with their parish priest.”

Eschbach assumed McGraw was religious but didn’t know the extent of it until he visited the former pitcher in 1991. McGraw told the priest that he never would have made it to the big leagues if not for the Catholic Church.

He and his two brothers had been raised by their father, Frank, because their mother, Mabel, struggled with bipolar disorder. They later divorced, leaving Frank to care for the three boys on his own. It was not an easy task, and paying for all of their needs as a single parent was difficult.

In the late 1950s, a priest at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church encouraged Frank to send his sons to their private school.

“He said, ‘No, Father, I can’t afford it,’” Eschbach said. “The priest says, ‘You just do little jobs for me here and there, and I’ll take care of their tuition. But your boys need to be in school.’

“Tug said, ‘If we had gone to a big public school, we wouldn’t have been noticed by scouts. But we went to this little Catholic school in Napa Valley.’”

In 1961, the Mets signed McGraw’s brother, Hank, who encouraged them to sign Tug three years later. It ended up being a franchise-altering decision. McGraw became a key cog in the Mets’ 1969 World Series-winning run, and was one of the most effective relievers in baseball by the 1970s.

He was traded to the Phillies in December 1974, and he again proved he could help a middling team’s postseason aspirations. From 1976 to 1981, McGraw pitched to a 2.64 ERA in 30⅔ playoff innings. That included his memorable save against the Royals in Game 6 of the 1980 World Series, in which McGraw struck out Willie Wilson, threw his arms in the air, and jumped for joy.

After his final season, in 1984, he began to work as a broadcaster at 6ABC. This is what McGraw was doing when he met Eschbach, who was then the pastor at Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Church in North Philadelphia.

Eschbach, a native of Hollywood, Montgomery County, was a lifelong Phillies fan, raised on the Whiz Kids of the 1950s. Initially, the idea of spending time with a player he’d rooted for was surreal. But McGraw’s relatability made it less so.

“He didn’t see himself as anything special,” Eschbach said. “In fact, he always told me, ‘I got into baseball because of Hank. Hank was the better athlete than I was.’”

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In the years after his retirement, McGraw went through a personal transition. He’d recently started to connect with his son, the country music singer Tim McGraw, who was born out of wedlock in 1967. His marriage to his first wife, Phyllis Kline, fell apart in 1988. McGraw would talk to Eschbach about this, not just as a priest, but as a friend.

“He told me once, ‘Timmy’s done a great job,’” Eschbach said. “‘He’s developed a great career. But you know what I really love about Tim?’ He says, ‘I wish that I could have been the father to my children that he is to his.’ That was Tug’s one spoken regret.”

They’d discuss their shortcomings, big and small, which is how Eschbach and McGraw realized they both had a smoking habit. One year, during Lent, McGraw finally chose to address it.

He started going to Mass every day. He’d kneel in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and ask for the strength to stop smoking.

“He said that every time he wanted a cigarette, he’d say a Hail Mary,” Eschbach said. “That’s how he stopped smoking. It took me another 20 years. And unlike him, I didn’t stop for a holy or a healthy reason. It just got too darn expensive. I couldn’t afford it anymore.”

The priest admired the pitcher’s self-awareness. McGraw was far from perfect. He liked to drink. Some of his personal relationships were complicated. But throughout their 13 years together, Eschbach knew McGraw to be a “faith-filled man.”

“He worked both sides of the road,” Eschbach said. “When he got too far on one side, he wanted to come back over. He was just a marvelous human being who was flawed but really trusted in God’s mercy and his love.

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“I can speak to his faith. He wasn’t showy about it. And I’m sure many of the people who knew him back then never would have realized he had that deep of spiritual sense to him. But he did. And it did motivate him. He wanted to do right, and he wanted to be right with God. And he was very, very sincere in that.”

In March 2003, Eschbach received a call from a friend of McGraw’s. They said the former reliever was at a hospital in Tampa, Fla. He’d been working as a spring training instructor with the Phillies and had begun to struggle with memory loss and headaches. Doctors had diagnosed a brain tumor.

The priest flew to Florida, and continued to make visits over the next few months. That summer, when McGraw was back in the Philadelphia area, the two men took a trip to St. Malachi Church in Cochranville, Chester County.

They were there for a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Our Lady of Consolation. (St. Malachi is in its parish.) Priests and bishops descended on the small, simple church, surrounded by rolling hills. Clergy members rode in on horse-drawn carriages.

To lift his friend’s spirits, Eschbach concocted a lighthearted surprise.

“I got Phillies caps for all of us who rode in,” Eschbach said. “Catholics, in all our grandeur, with Phillies caps on. I knew Tug was going to be there. I thought it would be a nice touch.”

After the service, the two men walked the grounds, taking in the peaceful farmland around them. McGraw turned to his friend.

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“How do you get into this place?” He asked.

“What do you mean?” Eschbach replied.

“I mean, what if I want to have my Funeral Mass here?” McGraw responded.

“We can arrange that,” Eschbach said, “but don’t die on me anytime soon, Tug.”

McGraw tried all sorts of treatments, some of which seemed to work for a while. But by the winter of 2003, his condition had worsened. He told his family he wanted to pass away at Tim’s cabin in Brentwood, Tenn.

A few days before he left, he said goodbye to two of his closest friends. Eschbach sat on one side of his bed, and former teammate Larry Christenson sat on the other. The priest heard McGraw’s confession, anointed him, and gave him his communion one last time. The pitcher died on Jan. 5, 2004. He was 59.

His family held a service five days later at St. Malachi Church. Logistically, this was not the easiest option. The church was built in 1838 and had made few renovations since. Its wooden pews were old and stiff, and could fit only about 250 people.

“I was told to expect 600,” Eschbach said.

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They set up tents for the overflow crowd, and on Jan. 10, buses of ballplayers arrived at the bucolic site. The 1969 Mets were there, as well as the 1980 Phillies, and several other former teammates of the longtime reliever. Eschbach officiated the Mass.

In true Tug McGraw fashion, he started with a joke.

“We know there’s someone really important that seems to be missing,” the priest said in a solemn tone. “Not because he doesn’t want to be, but because it just didn’t seem quite appropriate. But I brought him here for you today.”

He pulled out a bottle of whiskey.

“Dr. Jameson,” he said with a grin.

“It was just to break the ice and get people relaxed,” Eschbach recalled. “Tug would’ve loved it.”

The priest retired in 2019. He is now 81, and living in Lancaster County, where he helps local parishes with whatever they might need. Unlike Shank, Eschbach doesn’t have much, if anything, to commemorate his experience with the former Phillies pitcher.

McGraw once gifted him a baseball used during the 1980 World Series, but Eschbach gave it away. He can’t find any photos of them together, and has no church bulletins to look back on.

But he does have one thing.

“I have the memories,” he said.

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