The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
JEFF JACOBS
Tebow is many things, but he isn’t a phony
HARTFORD — Somewhere between a can’t miss kid and a sad baseball punchline, the 30-year-old major league prospect walked into the Aetna Community Center at Dunkin’ Donuts Park at 4:30 on a Monday afternoon.
The earth did not shake. The seas did not part.
Tim Tebow smiled for the cameras.
If we had told you six years ago that the Denver Broncos quarterback would be batting eighth and playing left field for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies in a Double A game against the Hartford Yard Goats in a $71 million jewel of a minor league ballyard named after coffee and donuts, well, you would have called us crazy.
Somehow though all the bickering and construction delays, Hartford got the jewel built and polished.
“Nicest minor league park I’ve been in,” Tebow said.
After failed attempts with the Jets and Patriots, Tebow gave up on football and, at age 29, decided he wanted to be a professional baseball player. The former Heisman Trophy winner hadn’t played baseball since high school. Yet somehow a Rumble Pony named Tebow and a Yard Goat pitcher named Peter Lambert met on a beautiful May night in 2018 on the shores of the Connecticut River. Yep, call us crazy.
It’s no surprise a team that has been averaging 4,511 fans drew a sellout crowd of more than 6,000.
Unless he makes a cameo to sell tickets in a meaningless September game, the chances of Tebow making
the majors with the Mets is a long shot. More than a year into his experiment that much remains true and it makes Tebow an easy target.
Yet here’s the thing. For cynics, know-it-alls and haters, Tebow doesn’t really care what you say. And, no, it’s not because he’s so arrogant or because he is tone deaf.
“To make this a success, I don’t think I have to play in the big leagues,” Tebow said. “But that would be my definition. My definition is to do something I love and enjoy and doing it every day. I get to do that.
“Success or not isn’t how far you make it, it’s do you enjoy it? Do you have passion? Are you living out something that has purpose in your heart and your life every day for me, I think I am. I think everybody probably would have their own definition. But I’m thankful I don’t have to live by their definition.”
Sorry, it’s hard for me to hate on those words.
Before they ever knew Tebow would be coming, the Yard Goats planned a bobblehead giveaway of Fancy Pants, the goat. The haters could have fun with that one. Tebow may not be a good major league prospect, but he’s a good man and all these years later it’s amazing how divisive a good man can be.
“If people talk about my legacy, hopefully it would be in the lives that were changed because of my effort for them and our foundation,” Tebow said. “Hopefully my legacy would be one of faith hope and love and trying to help those in the darkest hour of need.”
Tim Tebow is a lot of things. He is not a phony.
“Some of them have been supportive,” Tebow said when asked how he has been accepted by pro baseball players. “I think there are probably some that feel like, ‘You can’t do this. We’ve been playing this the whole time.’ That’s OK. I totally get both sides.
“The last series with (sons of former major leaguers) Bichette, Guerrero and Biggio. I can encourage these younger guys, because I haven’t played the baseball they have, but I have been around a lot of highs and lows.”
Tebow knows the ropes. No, he isn’t tired of meeting with the media before each series. No, he doesn’t take the boos from fans personally.
“Some like you,” he said. “Some don’t like you at all. It’s all good.”
And, no, he asserts at one point, he is not an actor. Nor is he Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders or some of the others who were able to succeed in the NFL and MLB. He has so much to learn at such a late date, too much.
A pro and college football player practices all week for a game. He hypes himself into a frenzy. And then he collapses. Baseball is a daily grind.
“To be honest, that adjustment has been one of the hardest things for me,” Tebow said. College or pro, doesn’t matter, everything is about peaking in the fall and then in the fall, peaking once a week.
“Baseball is totally different. You have to have the calm before the storm all the time, even in games. You can’t even get to high in a game because then you can’t sleep and you’re tired for the next day’s game. It’s a different mindset. It’s a different way of training and eating.”
He says he’s much better in that regard than last year in Advanced A ball.
“Consistency is a constant challenge,” Tebow said. “Trying to put good at-bat after good at-bat, being aggressive with certain pitchers, being patient with certain pitchers. Being able to have a good series and take it to the next series. Something gets off whack, you’re a little bit ahead, you’re a little bit behind, you’re timing just isn’t right. You go from feeling I’m on every pitch to what was I even look at it?”
That rhythm, that balance, Tebow calls it “the homeostasis as a hitter.” The homeostasis is obviously easier when it isn’t freezing. Tebow counted nine games where it was either snowing before, during or after games. Tebow hit a home run on his first swing this season. He didn’t homer again until it he did it twice in the past week. He entered the game hitting .241.
He says so many people have helped him. David Wright. Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom. He says he talks for hours with catcher Patrick Mazeika. He said Gary Sheffield, who befriended him through his foundation, has been especially supportive.
“He’ll text me, ‘You’re late on the fastball,’ ” Tebow said. “Gary, I can’t swing like you did alright, man? Nick Swisher always says, ‘Time up the heater, bro.’ ”
A three-game series in Connecticut also means meeting up with a number of ESPN folks he has befriended as announcer. Having Tebow as a teammate, meanwhile, means minor leaguers with small paychecks getting invited over for dinner.
“I haven’t bought a bus though like Michael Jordan (did when he was in the minors),” Tebow said. “I’ve tried to be a normal guy. My teammates are having fun with it. Before I came up here, I was cryinglaughing at my teammates impersonating fans how they say my name.”
Yes a Rumble Pony named Tebow and a Yard Goat met on a patch of green at 7:35 on a beautiful May night in 2018. Lambert struck Tebow out on a curve. Up with bases loaded in the fifth, he struck out again. That part isn’t a surprise. That this ever happened? A shock.