Tim Tebow, a formerly great college football player, mostly bad former NFL player, and tremendously bad baseball player, has retired from baseball. He announced his exit from the game yesterday, leaving behind a legacy that is a testament to how eagerly the world will humor a famous guy who is terrible at what he does.
Tebow began his journey with the Mets in 2016, when the team signed him to a minor-league deal that placed him in an instructional league. He hit a home run in his first at-bat in that league, and then spent the next few years pinging around various levels of the Mets' system while swinging at and missing a lot of pitches. Tebow will finish his career with a .223 batting average in 287 minor-league games. His best stint came in Double-A, where he hit .273/.336/.399 to go along with six homers in 84 games. He fared much worse in Triple-A, where he hit .163/.240/.255 in 77 games.
Tebow's on-field production was never the point, though. The Mets kept letting him put on a uniform because he was a useful show pony. Every year, Tebow got an invite to the Mets' Spring Training camp, where he provided the team with a jolt of publicity and surely convinced a few dozen weirdos to make an annual trip to Florida in search of an autograph.
We offer a sincere congratulations to Tebow, who showed the world just how far a handsome celebrity who knows how to semi-competently swing a baseball bat can go in life.
