Mets Should Make It Tebow Time In Queens

It has to be profoundly bitter for Mets fans to suffer the twin-indignities of watching their team tank by June while the Yankees soar toward pennant contention. Despite winning their last game, the Mets are 15 games behind the Braves. Their 33 wins are the fewest in the National League, even fewer than the Marlins, a team intentionally gutted by new czar Derek Jeter. 
But since we're here, with half a baseball season left, we must wonder what will make the Mets watchable over the next 90 days.
Beyond the heavenly pleasure of watching Jacob deGrom take the mound every fifth game, not much. So without an MVP or Cy Young winner on the roster, perhaps the Mets should reach down and pluck the only Heisman winner in the system.
That's right. The Mets may as well bring up their best QB to play OF.
Tim Tebow, who's been a winner everywhere else in life, made a curious career choice in playing baseball in general. He won NFL games as a quarterback - including a playoff game against a 12-4 Steelers team - before teams decided his throwing motion was too toxic to be a starter. His pride kept him from proving himself in the CFL, or at least becoming a utility player in the NFL.  
And signing with the Mets - hardly an eternal power - arched a few eyebrows. But it could be that the Mets were the only MLB club to offer Tebow a valid path toward the majors. Had he gone with a contending team, he likely would have toiled in the minors without ever sniffing a big-league at-bat. 

It may be hard to metabolize, but Tebow was just named to the AA Eastern League All-Star team. As a prospect, he's hardly Gleyber Torres or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The later, son of Hall-of-Fame outfielder Vladimir Guerrero,  is batting .407 with 11 HR and 55 RBI. By epic contrast, the former Florida Gator is hitting .261 with five homers and 30 RBI for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies. 
Tebow will be in this lower-level All-Star game for the same reason the Mets should call him up well before September, when teams expand their rosters to 40 players. 
People love to look at Tim Tebow. 
Even when Tebow was a backup QB for the Jets, he wound up on the back page more than any other backup. Sure, one time it was women gawking at him jogging shirtless in the rain. But the truth is men and women alike are fascinated by Tebow, who is not only a nice-looking fella but also maddeningly humble and a humanitarian. Some stars just have that hypnotic thing over the media and masses. Tim Tebow is one of them. 
So in a season when Jacob deGrom is the only player who would undoubtedly start on any other MLB club, Tebow would be a welcome attraction and distraction from a disastrous season. Not to mention Tebow is posting the best stats of his brief baseball career at the highest level at which he's played at. 


We all know Tebow, who turns 31 next month, is not the face of the future. This baseball thing may not be a vanity project, but it's certainly not a budding, booming career. Michael Jordan got the baseball itch, and it did wonders for the economy in Birmingham, AL, where he toiled in the minors. Likewise, Tebow injected millions into the local economy of Binghamton, NY. 
No, Tebow won't rock the stock market, Chelsea Market, or any other Big Apple market. But the Mets will get some ticket sales out of Tebow, which is the entire reason they signed him. A few weeks ago, a Facebook friend gleefully shared that he just paid ten bucks to see Jacob deGrom pitch against Clayton Kershaw at Citi Field. 
Who wouldn't drop a similar sum to see Tim Tebow swing a bat, or run, with his shirt on, across the outfield? ​