The national sports phenom and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback will head to the Mets Instructional League in Port St. Lucie, Florida, to start his professional baseball career, the team said.
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Former Instructional League players include all-time greats like Pete Rose.
Tebow has been looking to pursue a baseball career and worked out for scouts just recently.
As junior at Nease High School (Ponte Vedra, Fla.) in 2005, Tebow batted.448 with four home runs and 25 RBI and was named All-First Coast by The Florida Times-Union. Alderson said after instructional league, Tebow may play in the Arizona Fall League if he has shown the aptitude to play in the league typically reserved for top prospects.
Terms of Tebow’s contract with the Mets were not disclosed. What can it hurt to have him at spring training and in your minor league system and maybe you catch lightning in a bottle. However, the network and ESPN announced shortly after the signing that Tebow could continue to serve as an analyst for the network. If Tebow wants to attempt to climb the minor league ladder at age 29, that’s his decision: it’s a big, hard commitment if he pushes past the Instructional League level and actually plays in the Single-A, or whatever. “But we’ll keep an open mind”. Why should a team one year removed from a feel-good World Series run, in the thick of a playoff race and stacked with young pitching need publicity for weird off the field stunts? He’ll begin playing for NY in the instructional league later this month.
I have been generally indifferent with regards to Tebow’s attempt at a baseball career thus far.
While Tebow might be fighting an uphill battle – and could go the way of Michael Jordan – the newest member of the organization will get his opportunity. Ten teams were interested in Tim Tebow.
He was All State in baseball at high school before playing football at the University of Florida.
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The Colorado Rockies, Braves and Marlins reportedly had interest in Tebow. The Mets GM seemed to be holding himself back from chuckling nearly a month ago when the question was thrown at him at the end of a press conference. And it says here there’s no chance he begins with the Mets’ Gulf Coast League team in Rookie ball, as Gulf Coast League teams don’t even charge attendance.
