Tim Tebow recorded his first hit in the Arizona Fall League Tuesday for the Scottsdale Scorpions, snapping an 0-for-13 drought against some of the top MLB pitching prospects. The feat was mildly celebrated by Tebow’s fans, and harshly mocked by just as many.
Tim Tebow is one of the most complex figures in American sports, and the reaction to his attempt to play professional baseball has been nothing short of fascinating. Lately, though, the coverage of Tebow’s struggles in his first few games has become so melodramatic and over-serious that you can’t help but root for the guy.
The story goes like this: A historically successful college football player (who happens to be deeply and openly religious, if you haven’t heard) wasn’t good enough to play quarterback in the NFL and was too stubborn to change positions. After working in television – a nice back-up gig, if you can get it – Tebow turned to baseball, a sport he hadn’t played since high school.
His physique – like him or not, he’s still an elite athlete – and his profile earned him a contract with the Mets and a hefty $100,000 bonus, which is money most minor leaguers could only dream of. He then proceeded to go hitless in his first 13 at-bats, “proving” that he didn’t belong there in the first place. He’s also missing from the team for part of the week, as his ESPN contract requires him to serve as a college football analyst on the weekend.
It’s easy to see why fans and analysts might be annoyed by the Tebow experiment. It’s been called a publicity stunt (which is undoubtedly true, to some degree), a farce, a sham, and an embarrassment to the Arizona Fall League, the New York Mets and Major League Baseball.
The outrage is almost comical. Tebow has been bad in his first few games (Major League scouts have torched him), which was expected and is ultimately meaningless, as you can’t judge a baseball player on 14 at-bats, let alone one who’s learning the game on the fly. He’s almost certainly in over his head, considering the Mets sent him to a highly advanced league full of future major leaguers.
Still, you’d have to be harboring a pretty sizable grudge against Tebow to somehow conclude that his presence in Arizona is besmirching the good name of the AFL, a league the average baseball fan had probably never heard of until this fall, or think that he should just quit already when he’s barely started.
It’s not as if Tim Tebow has already been promised a spot in the Mets’ 2017 opening day lineup. His immediate future as a player is anything but glamorous. If he proves he can’t perform at a high level in the AFL – and the early indications would suggest that he needs more time to develop – and if he’s serious about this new career, he’ll end up spending the next summer or two on some minor league team playing in front of a few thousand people a night.
Even if he’s a colossal failure, the main harm is that the Mets will be out a $100,000 signing bonus, which is hardly a tragedy for a team with a payroll of over $100 million. Any player in the Mets organization who is good enough to play in the majors will get there, regardless of Tebow taking up a roster spot. We’ll eventually be able to judge Tim Tebow as a baseball player, but that time will not come in 2016.
