Tim Tebow, 29, has signed a minor-league contract with the Mets.
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When former Heisman Trophy victor Tim Tebow worked out for Major League scouts, the Phillies were one of 28 teams who showed up to watch him play. Tebow, at 6-3 and 260 pounds, showed impressive batting practice power, but struggled against former major league pitchers in live hitting.
But cornerback Darrelle Revis, who played with Tebow during Tebow’s only Jets season in 2012, was surprised to learn of his baseball career.
There’s a catch, though: Tebow won’t be available to participate in the Instructional League every day because of his broadcasting obligations with ESPN.
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. “Perception is something different”.
Tebow said that quitting baseball during high school was due to him pursuing football on a full time baseball.
Asked last month whether the Mets were interested, Alderson responded: “Are you insinuating we need a Hail Mary at this point?” “This was not something that was driven by marketing considerations or anything of the sort”. He has demonstrated over his athletic career that he is a tremendous athlete, has got character, a competitive spirit.
“It’s not a typical one-off player evaluation in the sense that we evaluate the tools and make a judgment”.
The Florida QB won the Heisman Trophy in 2007 and helped the Gators to two national championships. He was with the New England Patriots in 2013 preseason and Philadelphia Eagles in the 2015 preseason. If a publicity stunt is fun because it involves two scrappy, anonymous underdogs, why can’t it be fun with a former Heisman Trophy victor who’s a fish out of water?
Prior to this, he had starred for Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Florida, last playing in 2005 before switching his focus to football for his senior year of high school.
I would like to give Tebow the benefit of the doubt here.
If this venture ends the way most people expect it to, Tebow will get discouraged by the bus trips and the failure in the minors and go back to his TV work with ESPN. “I know that it’s not one that will be necessarily easy”. The Cuban star can opt out of his deal and become a free agent after the World Series. Some scouts thought the entire thing was a joke – “If (his swing) was any longer, it would take out the front row”, said one scout, probably unaware of the irony.
Just another nail in the coffin of the idea that baseball is a pure meritocracy.
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“I’m rooting for him”, Revis said. That was the case last night when Mets fans went to bed.
