http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/sports/baseball/tim-tebow-mets.html 2016-09-08 17:02:49 Tim Tebow Signs Minor League Deal With Mets The former Heisman Trophy winner and professional quarterback will play minor league baseball. === The Tim Tebow Tebow, who is listed as an outfielder, hit .448 as a junior at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Fla., in 2005. Then he concentrated on football and soon embarked on a celebrated career at the University of Florida and a less successful stint in the N.F.L. with the Denver Broncos and the Jets. His turn to baseball attracted 28 of the 30 teams to a workout on Aug. 30 at the University of Southern California. Tebow, who throws and bats left-handed, cut more of a football figure at 6 feet 3 inches and 255 pounds, and has encountered widespread skepticism from people in and out of the game. But he needed only one team to believe enough in him to sign him. In the Mets, who wear the same shade of blue and orange as his old college team, he found a taker. The team scheduled a conference call with General Manager Sandy Alderson and the agent Brodie Van Wagenen, who also represents the Mets’ Yoenis Cespedes and Jacob deGrom. Chad Moeller, the former major league catcher who trained Tebow at his baseball facility in Scottsdale, Ariz., said last month that he believed Tebow could already hit .220 in the major leagues. Moeller said Tebow profiles as a power hitter. “I’ve told him, ‘No one’s going to want to see you slap the ball the other way and run; you’re going to be out there to knock walls down,’ ” Moeller said. “He can hit a baseball a long, long way, and he has the ability to drive the ball to all fields. It’s crazy power.” Tebow becomes the latest star from one sport to try to translate his athleticism to another. Michael Jordan left the Chicago Bulls in 1993, after the third of his six N.B.A. titles, and spent the 1994 season playing for the Class AA Birmingham Barons, a farm team of the Chicago White Sox. Jordan, who was 31, hit .202 with three homers and 30 stolen bases. Players who have played in both the N.F.L. and Major League Baseball include Bo Jackson, Brian Jordan and Deion Sanders. But all of those players played baseball in college and started their professional careers at a much younger age than Tebow. His pursuit is clearly a long shot, but the Mets are intrigued enough to find out for themselves.