Depending on how much of a sports fan you are, Tim Tebow’s recent tryout — which was actually attended by nearly all 30 Major League teams — is either a cry for attention, an insult to America’s pastime, or Tebow trying to go from ex-quarterback refugee to the second coming of Jim Morris. Which is it actually?
Considering how Tebow performed at his showcase earlier this week, it is indeed either an insult to America’s pastime or a potential sign of things to come — at least, according to those in attendance. As USA Today reported earlier today, general reception to Tebow’s performance on Tuesday has been mixed to say the least. One American League scout who remained anonymous told Josh Peter the following:
“It was a complete waste of time. It was like watching an actor trying to portray a baseball player. He tried. He tried. That’s the best I can say. He is crazy strong, and could run well in one direction, but that’s it. He only had one good throw of all his throws.”
Bad throws from Tebow have come to be expected over the years, but a National League scout actually wasn’t too pessimistic about things.
“Better than I expected, to be honest…. That’s a big dude, for as fast as he can run. The power was impressive, but I wish he could have translated it maybe a little better (against live pitching).”
Most likely, you’re not going to see Tebow suiting up for a big league team for the final month of the season — not even for the injury-plagued New York Mets or Los Angeles Dodgers — but one man is curious to see the skills Tebow displayed up close. One man, a so-called baseball lifer, wants to see what Timothy Tebow, the former Heisman Trophy winner for the University of Florida, is made of.
That man, you ask?
Hey Timmy @timtebow lets do a home run derby to see what got.
— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) August 31, 2016
Interesting. Most interesting. In short, we could very well see a heavily religious, God-loving quarterback who is unofficially blackballed from the NFL for a mixture of poor performance and being a distraction going up against a steroid-using, wife-abusing , Twitter-obsessed former American League MVP with 462 career-long bombs in a home run derby.
Who wouldn’t want to see this on national TV?
Granted, Canseco was likely being sarcastic as he’s prone to doing on social media, but would anyone really pass an event like this up? Would Fox Sports 1, who hired away the Tim Tebow-obsessed Skip Bayless earlier this year from ESPN, give up an opportunity like this when they’re in desperate need of some kind of spark to establish a fanbase in year four of the network?
And at the same time, Canceso would probably be up for it seeing as he’s always interested in doing the most random of all things. It wasn’t long ago that Canceso was doing celebrity boxing matches, appearing on The Celebrity Apprentice , and as NBC News reminds us, even shooting himself in the hand.
Tebow, who turned 29 earlier this month, was a two-time National Champion with the Florida Gators and parlayed that into becoming a first-round pick of the Denver Broncos in 2010. Following an AFC West division title in 2011 that saw Tebow become a national icon and “Tebowing” become a worldwide trend, the former Davey O’Brien Award winner was traded to the New York Jets and saw his career spiral downwards from there.
If there’s one thing that Tebow hasn’t let spiral out of control, though, it’s his body. Last year’s stint with the Philadelphia Eagles showed that for a guy who spent most of his time in recent years in an ESPN studio, he’s still packing some heat.
[Photo by Chris Carlson/AP Images]