Just when you thought Tim Tebow’s failure to make it as an NFL quarterback would have put an end to a career in professional sports, in comes this report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter: Former NFL quarterback and current ESPN broadcaster Tim Tebow is actively pursuing a career in professional baseball and plans to hold a workout for Major League Baseball teams later this month, according to his agents Jimmy Sexton and Nick Khan.
For almost the past year, Tebow has been training in Arizona and Los Angeles to hone his play as a professional batter and outfielder in a sport he has not played on a full-time basis since he was in high school in 2005. …
All 30 Major League Baseball teams will be invited to Tebow’s workout at the end of the month, an event he has been preparing for over the past year. Those who have seen Tebow hit have been surprised he picked up the sport so quickly after not playing it since he graduated high school in 2005.
That’s right, Tebow wants to play in the Majors and wants to take a shot at a career the age of 29 (his birthday is later this week). That seems far-fetched, but let’s note that Tebow could have had a chance at a more normal career trajectory in the sport if the Los Angeles Angels would have drafted him in 2005. Former Angels scout Tom Kotchman had this to say to WEEI in 2013:
“We wanted to draft him. €œbut he never sent back his information card. Either it never got to him, or it’€™s Tim Tebow. Who knows if it got to him, and if it did we just never got it back. Otherwise were were going to take him.”
And here’s a scouting report from another former Angels scout, Stephen Hargett, in that same post:
“He had a strong arm and had a lot of power. If he would have been there his senior year he definitely would have had a good chance to be drafted. He had leverage to his swing. He had some natural loft. He had some good power. He was a good athlete. He had had enough arm for that position. He was a left-handed hitter with strength and some size.
“€œHe stood out. Right when you walked up to the field, he passed the body test. He was bigger and stronger than everybody. I think of how big he is, with an average junior or senior in high school being 5-foor-10, 160 pounds. This guy is 6-foot-4, 200 pounds. It was just easy for him. You thought, if this guy dedicated everything to baseball like he did to football how good could he be?”
It all sounds positive, but let’s remember that’s how Tebow was viewed back in the mid-2000s. Now, he’s trying to make it in a sport he hasn’t played since high school over a decade later.
