Tebow, 29, hasn’t played baseball regularly since his junior year at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Florida.
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There were 28 Major League Baseball teams interested in Tebow, but the Mets ultimately earned his signature.
Now, it is the Mets sharing the burden of handling naysayers, but in a conference call on Thursday, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson and Tebow both showed a willingness to ignore the haters and embrace the opportunity. We don’t have to listen to what everyone else tells us to do with our lives and we get to pursue it.
“We understand he’s a tremendous competitor and role model for players in our system”.
Tebow, a standout college football player at the University of Florida, went on to have a career in the NFL playing for the Denver Broncos (2010-11) and New York Jets (2012) and participating in preseason workouts with the New England Patriots (2013) and Philadelphia Eagles (2015). “I know this is a tough game”, he said.
Reviews released following his workout said Tebow was raw as a baseball player, but he exhibited power as a hitter and it appears the Mets were willing to attempt to harness his talent into something that could help the bid of Tebow to play again in professional sports. But look – I understand this is not a typical situation.
Tim Tebow has found a baseball home. Tebow thought outfield and first base were his most likely positions.
When asked how he will measure the success of his baseball pursuits, he responded, “I would consider success giving everything I have”.
Baseball is a game of adjustments – you need to be obsessed with getting better to survive and advance. But it does bring on plenty of questions about what Tebow’s realistic chances are to reach the major leagues, or whether the outsized publicity that automatically comes with Tebow was an additional motivation for the Mets organization.
“This is a strictly stand-alone proposition, and there were no other considerations taken into account in connection with any other player”, Alderson said.
Because it’s fair to believe it’s just as likely this baseball pursuit is about the part of Tebow’s gut that isn’t quite as wholesome as the one the world loves, rooted in an ego that, in the words of one National Football League coach who worked extensively with Tebow, “needs attention”. “There’s going to be mixed emotions, I’m sure”.
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“It would be very premature for us to talk about where he might go next season”, Alderson said. If Tebow thinks that he can be successful without matching his peers’ level of commitment, he’s going to get embarrassed.
