Tim Tebow’s baseball dream remains alive, with the polarizing athlete, who washed out as an National Football League quarterback after winning the Heisman Trophy in college, receiving an offer from the New York Mets.
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Great. Terrific. Except that Tebow will have to miss time at the Mets’ upcoming Instructional League in Port St. Lucie, Florida, to tend to his broadcasting duties with ESPN’s SEC Network, which only makes this move seem sillier.
He started training three months ago at a baseball school in Arizona run by former big-league catcher Chad Moeller.
Since he was pursuing his football career, Tebow hasn’t played competitive baseball since he was a junior in high school in 2005.
As Law’s ESPN colleague Adam Rubin pointed out, Tebow isn’t the first non-baseball-playing celebrity to sign with the team.
And if the Mets try to continue claiming this has nothing to do with marketing and everything to do with baseball, ask them how many other 29-year-old ballplayers who haven’t swung a bat at a live pitch in a real game in over 10 years are drawing their “intrigue” these days.
My problem is that Tebow isn’t fully committing himself to this endeavor.
Alderson said Tebow’s athletic prowess and relative celebrity status could be more a benefit than most realize, but he also stressed Tebow’s “makeup” as a reason the Mets took the chance. Unfortunately, all existing time turners were rendered useless during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, so that might not work for Tebow.
“I know the Mets wouldn’t allow him to get here unless he was capable of competing at this level”, Logan said.
The nuts and bolts of the Tebow signing include him reporting to Port St. Lucie on September 18 for an instructional camp that concludes October 8.
Tim Tebow is really committed to this baseball thing … just as soon as he gets done with being a college football analyst.
FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal said there were about eight teams considering Tebow.
As to why Tebow hadn’t tried his hand at baseball earlier, he said, “Honestly, it’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a little while and came close to pulling the trigger previous year, going through a day of training for baseball”.
“I mean, I believe Tim’s got a big heart, he’s a good person”, said Decker, who teamed with Tebow in Denver in 2010-11.
Alderson acknowledged that when Tebow held his workout, not “all the boxes checked off” with high ratings.
“I would consider success giving everything I have, putting in the work”, he said.
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Mercker was a teammate in Atlanta with two baseball players – Deion Sanders and Brian Jordan – who also played in the NFL. The fact he signed with the Mets is what is making news.
