McBride, who came up to the Big Leagues and spent all his time thus far with the St. Louis Cardinals, was dealt along with Steve Waterbury to the Philadelphia Phillies on June 15th for Rick Bosetti, Dane Iorg and Tom Underwood after alleged tension between he and recent managerial hire Vern Rapp, who was knows as a disciplinarian.
McBride made an immediate splash in the Majors, hitting .302 in limited play in 1973 before coming back and taking home the 1974 National League Rookie of the Year Award when he hit .309 with 173 hits and 30 stolen bases.
Sadly, even though he would keep that average around .300 for the rest of his career, he was repeatedly dealing with injuries, ranging from knee and shoulder ailments, to missing almost an entire season because of eye problems relating to contact lenses.
Over his 11-year career he managed to play a full season only four times, with three of those years coming consecutively between 1978-1980.
In that last of consecutive full years, he helped the Phillies win the 1980 World Series, defeating the Kansas City Royals and giving the team their first title.
After that, he played three more years in the Big Leagues, never more than 70 games in any one season, finishing up with a .299 batting average over 1071 games and 3853 at-bats, with 1153 hits and 183 stolen bases.
