Tim Tebow's big-league dreams are likely dashed, but deserve our respect [View all]

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The one-time football sensation was derided when he signed a minor-league contract with the Mets to chase a new dream, but Tebow’s improbable if modest success deserves our appreciation

Source: The Guardian, by Les Carpenter


For all the gifs and memes and fragments of an Internet broken by his prodigious swings, Tim Tebow turned out to be a decent baseball player. Probably not a great prospect at 30 years old, but good enough to show that his second sports career wasn’t a joke.

His best shot at a cup of coffee in the major leagues most likely ended with Monday’s diagnosis of a broken wrist. At the time he had been playing for the New York Mets Class-AA team, the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, two levels below the big leagues. And the fact he was hitting a respectable .273 with six home runs and a .734 OPS, along with the prospect of the Mets finishing a dreary season in an empty Citi Field, gave legitimacy to the idea he could be called up to the majors when the rosters are expanded to 40 players in September – if for no other reason than to sell tickets.

With the Mets hoping to rebuild for next year, relying on the promise of new, young players, not former football stars in their fourth decade of life, the window on Tebow’s big league dreams almost certainly slammed shut the moment his wrist cracked last Friday night. But if this is the end for Tebow and baseball, we should appreciate what he has done. He has proven himself to be a sports renaissance man.

*****

When you strip away the headlines and hysteria and the chuckles and jokes about the packaged, evangelical Tebow we are left with a man who loves sports so much he was determined to keep playing, even when the world told him to stop. A little more than 30 years into a life lived in bold type, he has been an NFL quarterback, an excellent television analyst and a minor league baseball player who almost proved he deserved a chance at the big leagues.

Not a bad sports life at all.


Read it all at: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2018/jul/24/tim-tebows-big-league-dreams-are-likely-dashed-but-deserve-our-respect


"Well done, good and faithful servant."