Tebow signed to minor-league deal

Having flopped with the Jets, Tim Tebow will try to revive his career as an outfielder with the Mets.

Four years removed from his last regular-season snap as an NFL quarterback, the 29-yearold agreed Thursday to a minorleague contract with the Mets that includes a $100,000 signing bonus. He will report Sept. 18 to the Instructional League in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and test his skills for three weeks against players just months removed from high school and college.

The Mets then will decide whether he goes to the Arizona Fall League, a winter league or gets personal tutoring to prepare for spring training.

Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders and Brian Jordan are the only players to have extensive careers in both Major League Baseball and the NFL during the past three decades.

Tebow hasn’t played baseball regularly since his junior year at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Fla., where he hit .494 and was all-county as a senior.

“We don’t have to listen to what everybody else wants us to do with our lives,” Tebow said during a telephone conference call. “We get to do what we want.

“I would consider success (to be) putting in the work and looking back on this opportunity 10, 15, 20 years from now and saying that I did everything I could to be the best I could be.”

Tebow will be allowed to leave the instructional league for his job as an analyst for the SEC Network, then return.

“This decision was strictly driven by baseball,” Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said. “This was not something that was driven by marketing considerations or anything of the sort. We are extremely intrigued with the potential that Tim has.”