Imagine this: “Now batting for your Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, left fielder, No. 15, Tim Tebow. “ Don’t laugh, it could have happened. In fact, it nearly did.
On Thursday, longtime baseball scout Tom Kotchman told Boston sports radio network WEEI that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim were very interested in drafting Tebow after his senior season at Ponte Vedra (Fla.) Nease High. In fact, Kotchman, who was helping lead the Angels scouting department at the time, insists all the team needed to pick the newest Patriots quarterback was his information card.
"We wanted to draft him," Kotchman told WEEI. "But he never sent back his information card. Either it never got to him, or … it’s Tim Tebow. Who knows if it got to him, and if it did we just never got it back. Otherwise we were going to take him."
The rest, as they say, is history. As noted by MaxPreps, it’s likely that Tebow would have stuck with his commitment to Florida and history would have proceeded as scheduled, but you never know.
Tebow’s time on the diamond was almost as successful as his title-winning form for the Nease football team. The superstar batted .494 as a junior, then took off his senior season after he signed with Florida. He hit four home runs during his final baseball season.
His prep coach, for one, claims that if he had been drafted and signed, Tebow likely would have been in the majors by now, whether with the Angels or someone else.
“Everybody should know this: He wasn’t just a great football player, he was a great baseball player, too,” Greg “Boo” Mullins told the Sporting News. “I believe he could have played in the big leagues."
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