Tim McGraw is a loving husband and father and has found the most incredible success throughout his decades-spanning career.
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However, the 1883 star – who shares three daughters, Grace, 25, Maggie, 23, and Audrey, 20, with wife Faith Hill – could have had a very different life had he not accidentally discovered who his father was when he was just 11 years old.
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Tim was raised by his stepdad, Horace Smith, but after stumbling across his birth certificate, he found out that his dad was none other than former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies baseball player, Tug McGraw.
Tim and Tug had a complicated relationship to begin with. They first met a few months after Tim's discovery, but then had no contact with each other until Tim was 18.
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"I think a lot of people don't realize I didn't grow up with Tug," he said during an appearance on Today in 2019. "I didn’t know Tug was my dad. I found my birth certificate when I was 11 years old.
© Photo: Getty ImagesTim's dad is the late baseball player Tug McGraw
"We didn't have a whole lot, and I was in my mom's closet, I was digging through something and found my birth certificate. It said McGraw. My name was Smith as a kid because my stepdad's name was Horace Smith."
But Tim admitted he never had any hard feelings towards Tug because learning his dad was a star athlete gave him something to reach for.
"It changed what I thought I could do with my life coming from the circumstances I came from," he explained. "I felt like when I found that out, you know, he's a professional baseball player who's successful, to me, it made me think that blood is in my veins, so that ability is in there."
© Photo: Getty ImagesTim paid tribute to his dad wearing his Mets jersey number
Tim added: "So I found sort of that grit inside me that he must have had in order to succeed at what he did. And it changed what I thought I could make out of my life."
Tim and Tug managed to form a close bond despite the circumstances in which they met; however, it was cut short when Tug sadly died of brain cancer in 2004 aged just 59.
In 2015, Tim paid a sweet tribute to his late father during the World Series when he threw the first pitch at the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals game wearing a number 45 Mets jersey – the same number his dad wore when the Mets triumphed in the 1969 World Series.
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