Tim Tebow is trying to play Major League Baseball.
The former star Florida Gators quarterback, whose three-year NFL career inspired unfavorable comparisons to Ryan Leaf, hasn’t played a professional sport competitively in four years, hasn’t played baseball competitively full time in 11 years, and turns 29 years old on Sunday. Still, he thinks he is capable of earning a rare spot on a major league roster.
That’s the takeaway from reports that the ESPN broadcaster has been training to return to uniform on the baseball diamond for the first time since high school and is planning to hold an open workout for all 30 major league teams later this month.
Tebow has been training for his MLB dream in Arizona and California for the past year.
“This may sound like a publicity stunt, but nothing could be further from the truth,” Brodie Van Wagenen, the co-head of the agency representing Tebow’s baseball dream, said in a statement.
“I see bat speed and power and real baseball talent. I truly believe Tim has the skill set and potential to achieve his goal of playing in the Major Leagues, and based on what I have seen over the past two months, it could happen relatively quickly,” said former major league catcher Chad Moeller, who has been working with Tebow.
So, Tebow becoming a professional baseball player now seems almost as far-fetched as him becoming a professional football player again. But you underestimate a professional sports team’s desire for Tebow-related publicity along with Tebow’s own natural Tebow-like athletic talents at your own cost.
He was actually recruited out of high school by the Angels, who were intending to draft him before he decided to quit baseball his junior year in high school and focus on football instead.
“We wanted to draft him, but he never sent back his information card,” former Angels scout Tom Kotchman said three years ago. “Who knows if it got to him, and if it did we just never got it back. Otherwise we were going to take him.”
Again, that was more than a decade ago.
Still, if you’re looking for evidence that Tim Tebow could once, many, many years ago play baseball very well, it exists.
In the last season he played in high school Tebow hit .494, was All-State, and led Nease High School to the Florida Final Four as the team’s cleanup hitter. His high school coach has said, “I believe he could have played in the big leagues” and called him a “six-tool player” who could have been picked between the seventh and 12th round of the MLB draft. During high school batting practice, he hit a pitch nearly 500 feet (according to Tebow legend).
And as recently as six years ago—when he was about to start his rookie NFL season—Tebow took batting practice at a Memphis high school and hit 12 out of 15 pitches out of the park. (OK, that’s not so recent, nor does it indicate the talent level to play baseball at the most elite level on the planet. Still, it shows that high school batting practice remained easy for Tim Tebow well into his early 20s)
So there’s proof of previous baseball ability. And if you’re looking for evidence of Tebow’s obnoxious levels of stick-to-itiveness on the baseball diamond, there’s also ample support for that.
During high school batting practice, he wouldn’t let his coach stop pitching to him until he hit one out of the park. (The guy really loves batting practice.)
And there’s this story from when Tebow was the Gators quarterback and throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Florida baseball game.
“He bounced his first attempt and it went to the backstop,” said the former Angels scout Kotchman, who was at the game. “He immediately asked the catcher to get it, throw it back so he could do it again. He wanted to make sure he did it right.”
There’s a metaphor for something in there somewhere. Anyway, look forward to seeing Tim Tebow in the MLB All-Star Game in 2017.
