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Stop trying to make Tebow happen, Mets

Jasen Vinlove / USA TODAY Sports / Reuters

Throughout his tumultuous career, which has taken him from the University of Florida to Mile High Stadium to hushed backfields in Port St. Lucie, the one constant for Tim Tebow - now ostensibly trying to hack it with the New York Mets - has been his unshakable faith in God. Whenever he gets the chance, Tebow gives thanks to Jesus Christ, his Lord and Savior.

"It is the most important thing in my life, so every opportunity I have to tell him I love him, or I’m given an opportunity to shout him out on national TV, I’m going to take that opportunity," Tebow said last week.

Even Jesus couldn't help him against Rick Porcello, though.

In what's sure to be the pinnacle of his hilariously unconvincing "career move," Tebow, despite being horribly unqualified, got four plate appearances in a Grapefruit League game Wednesday, striking out twice, grounding into a double play, and getting hit by a pitch - before getting doubled off at first - but providing the former Heisman winner and NFL flop with a vaguely amusing anecdote for when he's back doing college football analysis for ESPN, full-time.

And, make no mistake, that's exactly what's going to happen because Tebow is not a professional baseball player, even though a professional baseball team is paying him, at the moment, to play baseball.

That prediction isn't based off a few embarrassing at-bats, one of them coming against the reigning Cy Young award winner, and some shoddy baserunning. It isn't because Tebow was hot garbage in the Arizona Fall League, either. Rather, it's rooted in the totally preposterous premise that any soon-to-be 30-year-old, even an athlete of Tebow's ilk, could pick up a bat 10 years after his last high-school baseball game and somehow transform himself into a major leaguer.

Look, the Mets aren't the first team to use a celebrity cameo to break up the drudgery of spring training, but in Tebow's case there's this ridiculous pretense of legitimacy that makes the whole thing so damn infuriating. Everybody knew Billy Crystal wasn't making the Yankees because he's freaking Billy Crystal, but because Tebow isn't a nebbishy comedian - and, incidentally, could bench Billy Crystal - a non-zero percentage of baseball fans are taking this seriously even though, prior to last summer, he hadn't swung a bat in a decade.

Tebow is himself largely responsible for this, of course. Though every scintilla of evidence demands the contrary, from the 10-year layoff to his unsightly swing and brutal numbers in the Arizona Fall League, Tebow wants to be taken seriously.

"This isn't about publicity," Tebow told said in August. "It's definitely not about money. I took a pay cut to do this. For me, you pursue what you love regardless of what else happens. If you fail or fall flat on your face, and that's the worst thing that can happen, it's OK. When did pursuing what you love become such a bad thing? I'll make all the sacrifices to be the best I can."

It's not bad to pursue what you love - disclaimer: only if you enjoy the financial security that Tebow does - but it is hard for people with critical thinking skills to believe this is anything more than a cash grab, and it's pathetic, frankly, for the Mets to be facilitating this farce. Sandy Alderson, the Mets' general manager, had to resist the urge to call Tebow a "circus animal" in December, for goodness sake.

"We understand he's a little bit older so the process needs to accelerate at some point," Alderson said of Tebow's offseason plans. "But we still need to be prudent about it, and put him in situations where he can succeed, and not be viewed as a - I was going to say 'circus animal,' but that's probably not appropriate."

Alderson knew, of course, that having Tebow face the 2016 American League Cy Young winner doesn't constitute a situation where he can succeed. Considering how mightily Tebow struggled in the AFL, against highly touted Double-A and Triple-A arms, there was no plausible developmental purpose for him to start at DH - reminder: HE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A POSITION - against the Boston Red Sox. If the real motivation for having Tebow - charming, smiling, autograph-signing Tim Tebow - swing the bat at First Data Field on Wednesday isn't already obvious, consider this:

Nobody can fault a business for functioning like a business, or Tebow for taking the money thrown at him, but it is unbecoming of the Mets - and, to a certain degree, the league's PR machine - to pretend this is something other than commercial opportunism. (It doesn't exactly send the best message to aspiring big-leaguers in the Mets organization, either, when famous non-prospects get Grapefruit League at-bats over actual, you know, baseball players).

Tebow, who got a $100,000 signing bonus as part of the minor-league deal he signed in September, may end up riding buses around the Florida State League for a while this summer, putting butts in seats in podunk towns while the Mets hawk his jersey in their official team store. But this experiment, or journey (or whatever laughable term Tebow has used to characterize this thing) doesn't end at Citi Field.

That was never the plan.

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