Mark Knudson’s Three Strikes Blog: Strike One
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STRIKE ONE: Pitchers and Catchers.
Three words that bring a smile and a warm feeling inside.
We’re just a couple weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting for the start of baseball’s spring training, which means the dawn of a new baseball season.
But make no mistake – pitchers, catchers, infielders and outfielders have all been busting their tails since well before Christmas getting ready for next season. A typical professional baseball player takes off October (if he’s not in the post season) and a lot of November to rest and recover, but once the Thanksgiving leftovers are finished, the six or even seven days a week training regime begins in full. So while fans turn giddy about the start of camp, for players, it’s merely the next step in the preparation process.
That is, unless your name is Tim Tebow and you’re a TV personality, celebrity and well known minor leaguer. Then such trivial things – like taking fly balls or extra batting practice – take a back seat to producing a television mini-reality show revolving around your engagement to a former Miss Universe. Why not? It’s what you do (well) now. Tebow and his camera crew popped the question on January 12th…followed quickly by a trip to where else, Disneyland! Isn’t that were all the MVP’s go? Baseball training obviously took a back seat.
In less than a month, the New York Mets – who showed themselves to be serious about contending for the National League Eastern Division title with a very busy off season – will welcome Tim – and presumably his fiancée, Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters – to spring training in Port St. Lucie, Florida. He’s been invited to big league camp for some unknown reason (publicity maybe?) before presumably heading back to Double A, where he hit a robust .273. He was promoted from single A after a sizzling .220 start to last season.
Wonder how she’ll like spending her summer in Binghamton, New York?
Talk about a dichotomy for the Mets. Trying to conduct a championship caliber training camp while hosting a reality TV show. And you wonder why NFL teams don’t want to be on “Hard Knocks?”
Tebow is a talented man with a lot of various interests. He’s arguable the best college football player EVER (look at the list of accomplishments before you start to counter argue), an excellent public speaker, a talented football commentator, author and TV show host…and he’s even in the movie production business. But he’s NOT a real, actual professional baseball prospect. Everything about his baseball ‘career’ is a joke.
Tebow will be 32 years old before the next baseball season ends. Most double A players – the last level Tebow was toiling in before he got hurt – are 10 years younger than he is. THEY are prospects. HE’S a publicity stunt, and nothing more.
You wonder when the Mets will get tired of the charade and pull the plug on this nonsense. Before he had his minor league season cut short by injury last year, Tebow called himself “a work in progress.” Duh. Glad he sees it. What he doesn’t seem to see is that that “work” he’s talking about should have been done in his late teens and early 20’s. Granted, he was busy with football, which is fine. But just like his pro football career, Tebow’s apparent disdain for the menial tasks of off season training – like daily fly balls and BP in January – are a flashing sign to those of us who know what it takes to become a major league baseball player.
There are easily 200-300 young baseball players out there today who are NOT invited to a spring training camp who are better Major League prospects than Tim Tebow. All he’s doing right now is taking up a spot that should be going to a legitimate prospect.
And marrying Miss Universe.
Coming Wednesday: Strike Two…What happens when the Denver Nuggets activate Isaiah Thomas?
