Minor league team apologizes for mercilessly mocking Tim Tebow all game

Tim Tebow’s baseball career will probably always be overshadowed by his football career, but that comes with the territory of being a Heisman-winning quarterback turned NFL bust turned minor league baseball player.

Over the weekend, Tebow’s Columbia Fireflies team took on a team in Charleston, S.C., and the RiverDogs took the opportunity to mess with Tebow all night. First, they used his infamous crying picture on its jumbotron. To refresh your memory, that photo made the rounds heavily on the internet after Florida’s loss to Alabama in the 2009 SEC Championship Game.

Every time someone from Tebow’s team was up at bat, the jumbotron read “Not Tim Tebow” with the photo of crying Tim in the background of the player hitting.

It wasn’t just the jumbotron. Charleston’s mascot, Charlie T. River Dog, piled it on by wearing “John 3:16” eyeblack, the same bible verse Tebow wore during the 2008 National Championship Game against Oklahoma.

The RiverDog’s president and general manager, Dave Echols released a statement via the Post and Courier regarding the antics.

“While we believe that our promotions were poking fun at Mr. Tebow’s celebrity status rather than his religion or baseball career, our intent was not to offend anyone, and for the fact that we did offend, we are sorry.” Echols said.

“Of the many promotional pieces that we executed, there were a handful on Friday’s game that some construed as in poor taste, and we made it a focus to remove those elements and celebrate Mr. Tebow the remainder of his time in Charleston,” Echols added.

Tebow went 1-for-4 on the night, and one of his highlights was this unfortunate moment when his bat slipped out of his hands from his swing and went into the stands.

It’s obviously easy to make fun of a guy like Tebow, but all of this in one night had to be annoying to deal with from his end. But as I said before: That’s just the nature of the beast of being, well, Tim Tebow.