Tim McGraw hardly needs an introduction. As one of the most prolific artists in country music history, the “Something Like That” singer has amassed 41 #1 hits, 3 Grammy Awards, 16 ACM Awards and over 56 million records sold over the course of his 32 years in the genre.
His music career has been well-documented and well-known to many. However, what many may not know is the complicated history between him and his father, Tug McGraw.
Tug, known mainly for his professional baseball career, played 19 seasons in the MLB for the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets. Throughout his extended time in the majors, he would make two All Star Games, amass 96 wins, secure 180 saves and win two championships.
Despite his father’s illustrious baseball career, McGraw had no idea that the former Mets all-star was his father until he was 11-years-old. As the “It’s Your Love” singer recalls, he only found out after finding a shoebox in his mother’s room:
“ There was a shoebox there, and I opened the shoebox and the first paper I pulled out of that shoebox, I opened it up and it was a birth certificate. And it said Samuel Timothy McGraw. The McGraw was X’d out, and it had Smith written in hand above it. And I didn’t have a clue what that meant. Then I kept reading, and I read down where it said ‘Father’s occupation, professional baseball player.’ And that’s how I found out Tug McGraw, that he was my father.“
McGraw, who had grown up playing baseball his entire life, was elated at the fact that his father was a professional baseball player. So much, in fact, that he begged his mother to take him to a game to see him. Despite making the drive to Houston to watch the Phillies take on the Astros, McGraw did not meet his father until he was 18.
He explained that Tug all but ignored him at the game, “ [I] begged my mom to take me back to see the Phillies play Houston, and she borrowed a car and we drove to Houston. He was playing at the Astrodome, and he had left tickets for us. We walk in and they’re warming up and he’s down on the field… I started yelling at him, and then he wouldn’t look at me. I spent 30 minutes trying to get his attention, and he wouldn’t look at me. So I went and sat back down, and then I never saw him again til I was 18.”
After graduating high school in the spring of 1985, McGraw received a music scholarship at Northeast Louisiana University. Despite receiving the scholarship McGraw’s mother knew that the family did not have the money to cover the college’s tuition. This prompted his mother to call Tug in order to help fund his son’s college education, and it was during this time where the two finally met.
Tug recalled meeting his son for the first time, “ He looked at me and he said, ‘Hey, I just wanna know if I could call you dad?‘ He said he just wanted to know that he could call me Dad. I said, ‘Yeah, I’m your father.’ I mean, when you hear that, it brings everything to a conclusion.”
After reconciling with his father, McGraw, who had previously had the last name of Smith due to his stepdad, decided to change it to his fathers’. The rest, as they say, is history.
Years later, in an interview with Esquire, the 58-year-old singer/songwriter revealed that he had to ill will towards his father despite not knowing him during his childhood. “People ask me, ‘How could you have a relationship with your father? You were growing up in nothing. He was a millionaire baseball player. He knew you were there, and he didn’t do anything.’ But when I found out Tug McGraw was my dad, it gave me something in my little town in Louisiana, something that I would have never reached for. How could I ever be angry?”