New York Mets: Tim Tebow circus not “entertaining”

The New York Mets Tim Tebow circus is far from entertaining…

Let us pause for a few minutes and consider Tim Tebow and the continuing circus of his athletic career, which he apparently intends to pursue ineptly while commenting on college football for his real paycheck. It was announced Jan. 19 that Tebow would join the New York Mets in Port St. Lucie next month, giving him yet another line on his resume — the ultimate journeyman’s document in the history of the sport.

It is his first invitation to a major league spring training camp. (He has already appeared in Grapefruit League games as a minor league Mets invitee.) As Kristie Ackert has reported, not only have the Mets made this wildly inappropriate team management move, they have explicitly admitted to doing it as a matter of entertainment. Mets GM Sandy Alderson:

“Look, we signed him because he is a good guy, partly because of his celebrity, partly because this is an entertainment business.”

And Tim Tebow is apparently good with that.

I’m betting new New York Mets skipper Mickey Callaway isn’t, but what’s he going to say? The ink isn’t even dry on his first managerial contract. Ackert, however, sees this whole matter as lightly humorous, considering it a what-the-hell-sell-some-jerseys thing.

Tebow’s invitation isn’t a matter of life and death, but I’m going to disagree with her for several reasons that I’ll try to keep light, as befits the entertaining matter of multi-million dollar baseball.

Why This Is a Bad Idea

First, Ackert notes that Tebow’s attempt to be a professional baseball player is “polarizing.” Some hate the notion; some like it. The latter some are as wrong as a diner attempting Chateaubriand. Tebow is likely a very nice clubhouse presence, sort of like everybody’s older brother at the Single-A level where he belongs, but that is not a reason to invite him to the big league camp. Among other things, the Mets are encouraging a bad, dim conflation of religiosity and baseball skill.

OK, OK, maybe he’s actually devout. Many parents have no problem buying their kids “that nice young man’s jersey.” However, are the Mets counting on that as a revenue stream this year?

Jeez, maybe they are. So far they’ve only signed up Jay Bruce for another go-round, and everybody who bought a Bruce Mets jersey probably hasn’t worn it out yet.

Next, Ackert asserts:

“Tebow is not taking a spot in camp away from a young player who is going to be playing in the big leagues in 2018.”

Now, that is not the issue.  Until Alderson says every player who could benefit from an invitation to the Mets’ camp this spring has been invited, and Mr. Tebow is extra, somebody is unfairly excluded. That somebody is probably a person who isn’t playing professional baseball as a hobby but calling it “chasing a dream.” That somebody would probably like to punch out Tim Tebow’s entertaining lights

He Just Can’t Do It Now

Finally, while some astute observers have bent over backward to suggest that Tebow might actually be a Major Leaguer one day, this will not happen. (I will make bets on this – if that’s possible.) Tim Tebow’s numbers say this is so: .226 batting average at low levels of the minors, 250 pounds, 30 years old. More importantly, neuroscientists have already explained this sort of failure.

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I refer you here to a fascinating book by Harold L. Klawans called Why Michael Couldn’t Hit.

Remember? The greatest basketball player who ever lived tried to play professional baseball at just about the same age Tim Tebow is now and failed pretty miserably. Klawans explains this in considerable detail touching on the notions of nature and nurture, and brain development as related to readiness for optimized learning.

Hitting a baseball in even the high minors is very hard, and harder to do if you didn’t learn to do it well at the right time. Klawans: “Skills must be learned at the right age if they ever are to be learned well.” Tebow, despite playing youth and high school baseball well, simply did not hone his baseball skills for higher levels when he should have. That was when he was playing college football, or at the very latest, when he finished that.

Next: David Wright opens up about his MLB future

The New York Mets can sell all the shirts they want to this spring with Tebow’s name on it. If you step back from the circus, though, and look again at it, it’s not very entertaining. It’s just sort of greedy – on everyone’s part.