Ex-Gators QB Tim Tebow seeks pro baseball career

NEW YORK (CBS Sports) — One-time NFL quarterback Tim Tebow hasn’t been able to find work in quite some time, eventually settling as a college football analyst for ESPN, but on Tuesday his agents announced he would be pursuing an odd dream indeed: playing baseball.

According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, Tebow is going to try and land a career playing for a Major League Baseball team. This is not a drill.

“Obviously we support Tim in his pursuit of a baseball career, as we have in all his ventures,” Tebow’s football agent, Jimmy Sexton, said.

“Tim’s athletic ability, his work ethic, his leadership and his competitiveness were evident in football and will show in baseball. Knowing Tim’s passion and desire, we won’t be surprised by anything he accomplishes.”

According to Schefter, Sexton is working with CAA baseball agent, Brodie Van Wagenen, as they attempt to further Tebow’s professional athletic career.

Schefter also reports Tebow has been “training in Arizona and Los Angeles” to play baseball “for almost the past year 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.”

Tebow is not entirely inexperienced in the field of baseball.

Tebow was an All-State baseball player in Florida and hit .494 as a junior, helping Nease High School reach the final four of the Florida state playoffs.

For the math majors out there, it’s been 11 years since Tebow played baseball at a competitive level. It is highly unlikely that, at the age of 29, Tebow will return to a sport he hasn’t played since high school and become competitive enough to make a Major League Baseball roster.

He’s invited everyone to give him a shot, though, holding a working later in August according to Schefter:

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.

Even if Tebow lands a baseball contract with some team, it’s not like he would move straight to the big league club, as he would in the NFL.

Instead, whatever team decided to take a shot on Tebow would need to plop him in the low level of the minor leagues — even freaking Michael Jordan had to start at Double-A Birmingham — and work his way up.

It’s a grind in the minors — ask Russell Wilson how hard it can be — and even the best baseball prospects don’t fly up the farm system. If Tebow’s new dream breaks right, he still might be in his mid-30’s before he even approaches a professional baseball career.

One simply does not decide to become a major league baseball player in their late 20’s and expect it to actually happen. The former first-round pick of the Broncos has been in and out of the NFL since being drafted in 2010.