ESPN’s Onley: GM suggested Tebow MLB tryout ‘smells of reality show’
Aug 25, 2016, 3:10 PM | Updated: 3:12 pm
Take Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones, a quarterback in high school but not much since.
Say the perennial MLB All Star, Gold Glover and Silver Slugger decided baseball wasn’t working out, and he decided to try his hand at revamping his quarterbacking days in the NFL.
After this @MLB season I’m going try out for the @NFL this offseason. I haven’t played since HS but I’ve played in a few TurkeyBowls since!!
— 10 (@SimplyAJ10) August 9, 2016
“We would laugh at him,” Senior baseball writer for ESPN Buster Onley told “Schlereth and Evans” Thursday morning, “because playing quarterback in the NFL is incredibly difficult.”
Former Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, who last played in a regular season game in the NFL in 2012, will try to do just that next week — look to make a comeback in a different major sport — as he’ll reportedly work out for Major League scouts.
“Teams know he’s a terrific athlete, he’s in great shape, he’s a good guy, he runs fast, he probably throws pretty well. The big question everyone has is, can he hit live pitching?” Onley said. “… No one is going to know that until he plays. What we hear is, he’s been working on this or planning this since last December. Well, then why didn’t he play some place this summer?”
There’s “a million” independent leagues Tebow could have signed with, said “Schlereth and Evans” co-host Mike Evans, but it wasn’t “grand enough.”
“This is grand. ‘Hey, I’m going to be holding a tryout. Come see me play,’” Evans said. “The hypocrisy of it all is what bothers me.”
Evans’ co-host Mark Schlereth, who played in the NFL and had a son play in the MLB, agreed, saying picking up baseball a decade after Tebow quit as a junior in high school “reeks of hypocrisy.”
“I just find it, me personally with a son who pitched in the Major Leagues for four years, I find it somewhat disheartening and disrespectful to the guys who make this their profession,” Schlereth said.
Tebow was an all-state baseball player in high school, hitting .494 in his junior season while at Nease High School in Jacksonville, Florida.
ESPN reported this week that Tebow is scheduled to hold the workout on Aug. 30 in Los Angeles.
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