Baffoe: Tim Tebow, Chicago White Sox Outfielder
By Tim Baffoe--
(CBS) When someone isn't self-aware enough to not willingly be a public joke, they deserve the mockery. Tim Tebow, the perpetually not-former pro athlete and purposeful sideshow who was on the field during an NFL playoff win, is such a someone.
Most of us would accept the fleeting glory Tebow had. The stories he can tell for the rest of his days about defying all the haters en route to 35 career NFL games. A cultish fan club that lingers today on message boards and eating alone in the office break room. The cushy TV gig in which nobody cares if you're not good at that either.
But Tebow is a glutton for ridicule, living some twisted experience as a sad hybrid between Brett Favre and Rudy, two sports figures whose mythic tales of refusing to let go straddle the fine line between the celebratory and annoying. Every damn year -- multiple times a year, even -- we are subjected to the "Tebow making a comeback" story. And the summer of 2016 is no different.
Now the quarterback who couldn't play quarterback in the NFL and realized too late he stood a better chance of hanging on as a fullback-tight end combo has announced to the request of no one that he will be soon holding a demonstration of skill and whimsy for all interested potential employers ... in Major League Baseball.
Former NFL quarterback and current ESPN broadcaster Tim Tebow is actively pursuing a career in professional baseball and plans to hold a workout for Major League Baseball teams later this month, according to his agents Jimmy Sexton and Nick Khan.
Tebow will turn 29 next week and hasn't played competitive baseball since 2005. (It's also worth noting that he wasn't drafted in baseball then even though top college football prospects who played baseball get drafted in late rounds on a whim by MLB teams all the time.) His presumptuousness that he has a prayer of a chance to make a team in any capacity above gimmick is fairly insulting to all of our intelligences.
Which is why he'd be perfect for the Chicago White Sox.
They've clearly established themselves as a direction-less disappointment for the rest of this season. The White Sox have little to offer the rest of the way in terms of a carrot for fan interest. Tebow's workout will come just in time for expanded roster call ups on Sept. 1. It's PR kismet.
"Those who have seen Tebow hit have been surprised he picked up the sport so quickly after not playing it since high school," Schefter notes.
Though the batting practice he's hitting against might as well be a pitching machine at Fun Time Square in Alsip, I'm sold.
Everyone from the most ardent Tebow messianic to sadist like me would watch Tebow in the outfield at U.S. Cellular Field. There's precedent here, of course, with Michael Jordan's White Sox career, even though Tebow (probably) isn't looking to merely stay in shape while gambling.
Go full Bill Veeck on this. What do the White Sox have to lose? Not anyone's respect anymore. This angel in the outfield would arguably be the third-oddest story involving a White Sox player this season.
Consider the positives to this. Tebow would be the grindiest grinder in the history of grindiness. He'd be teenage White Sox fanfic come true.
"He was a power-hitting left-hander who had a plus arm and plus speed," Tebow's high school baseball coach, Greg "Boo" Mullins told the Sporting News in 2013. "He was the leader of the team with his passion, his fire and his energy."
Lordy, Tebow is a mustache away from an Italian beef commercial here.
"He was a six-tool player," Mullins said. "He had arm strength, he could run, he could hit, he could hit for power, he could field, but his character made him that six-tool guy."
Did you hear that? Not the quote itself but the erotic noise coming from Hawk Harrelson's house in Indiana. Hawk would disown A.J. Pierzynski in favor of Tebow as new favorite son. Just imagine the mix of excuses Hawk would make for why Tebow's NFL career was sabotaged by negative pundits while lauding the blessing that he is in a White Sox uniform (No. 15, by the way, won from Brett Lawrie after winning an arm-wrestling-and-milk-gallon-chugging challenge for the jersey number).
"I tell ya, Stoney, you cannot quantify what an attitude like a Tim Tebow brings to a team," Hawk would surely say. "I don't care if it's football or baseball. The man got there and here on pure attitude and desire."
Oh, how I long to bathe in such lines on the TV road game broadcasts when I'm not parked in The Cell bleachers getting that Tim to wave at this Tim.
As Tebow is beyond washed up, that makes him a Kenny Williams guy for sure. Actually, can you think of the more ideal Kenny Williams guy besides Alex Rodriguez right now? Yes, Rick Hahn (supposedly) runs the roster, but Williams needs to get Jerry Reinsdorf's big sappy heart to lean on Hahn for this. Salvage something kitschy here.
Tebow won't undermine Robin Ventura like Chris Sale and others have this season. He'd probably call Ventura "Coach" or "Mister." And Ventura likely figures his days are few in that dugout anyway, so what would his objection be? "I owe J.B. Shuck"?
It's safe to assume Tebow's weirdness would fit right in with Adam Eaton, Sale and the rest of that clubhouse that championed a literal child as team leader en route to a sub-.500 record and no legitimate playoff aspirations. Those are the kind of guys that keep the Cult of Tebow alive in the first place, the kind of people who would take a joke of a campaign and fervently defend it until it turns into a reality, making a wealthy man whose professional failures are spun as successes into a folk hero and future leader.
"Tim's athletic ability, his work ethic, his leadership and his competitiveness were evident in football and will show in baseball," Tebow's agent, Jimmy Sexton, told ESPN, possibly with a straight face. "Knowing Tim's passion and desire, we won't be surprised by anything he accomplishes."
Many MLB teams may not even send a representative to Tebow's workout, which would eliminates much signing competition. The odds are in the White Sox's favor here. This joke can become reality on the long, bad comic routine currently being played out on the South Side.
Tim Tebow as White Sox outfielder should happen. The two deserve each other. We the spectators sure as hell deserve such dark comedy.
Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.
