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So, I'm reading a season-by-season review of baseball in the 1970s called Big Hair and Plastic Grass by Dan Epstein.
I get to the 1973 NL East race segment and he begins the origin story of Ya Gotta Belive. However, well I don't think the author has the story quite right in terms of what usually is the story, and from Tug himself. In fact quite the opposite with McGraw saying it in the snarky sort of way, as opposed to the way McGraw always told it that he was legitimately fired up by Grant's weak ass pep talk. IIRC the story goes that he had spoken with a therapist or something like it earlier in the day, so he was riding high on positive energy (probably chemically induced as well)
And speaking of Grant, the author paints him as a doddering old fool (which could be the case, but that's another story) who commended McGraw for his attitude. Yet, and I forget where exactly I saw it, but Grant really did see it as McGraw mocking him and it probably sealed Tug's eventual fate to be an ex-Met. Sure it would take a while, but it wasn't exactly a case where Grant was so naive that he thought McGraw was seriously THAT taken by his words.
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