Tim McGraw honored his late father, former MLB player Tug McGraw, on what would have been his 76th birthday on Sunday (August 30) by sharing a heartfelt video compilation on social media.
The video, set to McGraw's 2004 hit, "Live Like You Were Dying," featured photos of Tug playing baseball along with several shots of the country star and his father together. "Happy Birthday Tugger! He would've been 76 today," McGraw wrote in the caption alongside the clip. "We miss his nuttiness!"
Up until age 11, McGraw believed that his step-father, Horace Smith, was his father, but discovered that his biological father was the baseball star after finding his birth certificate. McGraw met his biological father for the first time at the Houston Astrodome.
"It changed what I thought I could do with my life coming from the circumstances I came from," McGraw shared with Today last year on discovering his biological father. "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. 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."
In January 2004, Tug died at age 59 after a battle with brain cancer. Since then, McGraw started the Tug McGraw Foundation in his late father's honor, which aims to "enhance the quality of life for kids and adults diagnosed with debilitating neurological brain conditions such as brain tumors, traumatic brain injury, and post-traumatic stress disorder."
Photo: Getty Images