Tim Tebow wants to play baseball and MLB is curious

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Tim Tebow played football in college and in the NFL. He (famously) did not succeed at the latter for very long, and is now a 29-year-old ESPN broadcaster. He might not be working for ESPN much longer if he has his way, though, as Tebow has a new dream: playing professional baseball. That might sound ridiculous, and it might sound entitled, too, but you know, if you had millions of dollars, were still in your 20s, and could attempt to play Major League Baseball without having to deal with any fallout besides the embarrassment that comes with failure, y’all would start holding showcases for MLB teams, too.

Tebow will actually host a workout for all 30 MLB teams later in August, in the hopes someone signs him. He has baseball experience, but not since high school back in 2005, other than the past year he has spent getting back into baseball shape. The problem in football was never his athleticism, so there is a chance — a slight chance, but a chance — that Tebow pursued the wrong career out of high school, and should have been playing baseball all along. There was at least one team that would have drafted him had he done so — former Angels’ scout Tom Kotchman said as much back in 2013 — and his high school coach said he was a “six-tool player,” with his character — of course — being that sixth tool.

He had power in high school. He can run, he can throw — that’s why the Angels wanted him in the first place. You assume he still has the athleticism, given it hasn’t been that long since his pro football career. Does he have enough time left to figure out how to hit a professional breaking ball or catch up to big league velocity? Those are questions we can only see answered by Tebow himself if he signs a minor league deal and works his way back up. Maybe there’s nothing here but a famous guy setting himself up for failure — that’s the most-likely outcome, even, because baseball is hard even if you stick with it nonstop. What does Tebow have to lose, though?