By PHIL ANASTASIA
The (Cherry Hill, N.J.) Courier-Post

There was nothing left in Tug McGraw's arm at 11:29 p.m. on Oct. 21, 1980.

There was nothing left because McGraw had given it all to the Phillies' drive to their first and only World Series victory in franchise history.

He lived the same way.

When you would mention McGraw's name to any of those old Phillies - to Mike Schmidt, to Dallas Green, to Larry Bowa - the first thing they would do was smile.

The second was to tell a story, a funny story, a story about McGraw and some mischief, some shenanigans on the road or in a hotel bar or in the clubhouse in the anxious moments before the start of a big game.

McGraw, who died Monday at 59, was a tremendous pitcher, a left-handed reliever who pitched every day - or did it just seem that way? - during the 1980 World Series against the Kansas City Royals.

But he was left-handed in other ways, too.

McGraw had an impish air, a leprechaun smile and a knack for finding the party.

And becoming the life of it.

McGraw brought the same spirit, the same energy to his fight against cancer.

You could see it in his eyes when he would discuss his surgery and his treatment when he arrived at spring training in March.

You could see it in the way doctors and nurses rallied around him during his temporary reprieve from the disease in the fall.

McGraw wasn't just a party guy. There was some steel behind that smile, some toughness beneath that happy-go-lucky exterior.

How else to explain his success on the baseball field?

He wasn't the hardest thrower. He had a good screwball - fittingly, for a guy who tended to look at things from an odd angle - but it wasn't an overpowering pitch. He didn't assume a menacing demeanor on the mound.

He was clutch, though, and he relished pressure situations. And, man, were there pressure situations for McGraw and the Phillies in 1980.

He was the closer for a team that turned October dramatics into a nightly occurrence, that played some of the most dramatic games in franchise history - one after another after another.

McGraw flourished in that atmosphere. That was life with the sound turned up, and McGraw loved it loud.

He would slap his glove on his thigh, pat his chest like his heart was threatening to explode and throw himself - in a left-handed, screwball-pitcher kind of a way - into the moment.

McGraw had a 1.46 ERA for the 1980 Phillies. He was the ace reliever for a team that sputtered and staggered through the first five months, then caught fire in September and won the National League East by beating the Montreal Expos on the road in consecutive games on the final Friday and Saturday of the regular season.

McGraw saved the first victory in Montreal, pitching two innings and striking out five. He won the second game, pitching three innings and allowing just one hit, and mowing down the Expos 1-2-3 in the bottom of ninth.

The World Series, that was something else again.

McGraw pitched in four of the six games in the 1980 World Series. He saved the first game, lost the third and won the fifth.

He entered Game 6 in the bottom of the eighth, relieving Steve Carlton with two men on base and nobody out. It was a cold, unforgettable night, the atmosphere electric and McGraw was in his element.

He pitched the eighth and the ninth, but not without some signature dramatics. The Royals loaded the bases in the ninth and McGraw threw the last pitch that left his weary arm at 11:29 p.m. and Willie Wilson swung and missed and the Phillies had won the World Series.

It was all he had to give, and it was everything.

Even now, as we mourn his passing and make note of another exact time, fans of Tug McGraw can take comfort in the knowledge that the same was true of his life.