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Tim Tebow is retiring from baseball after five years as a minor leaguer with the New York Mets.
The 2007 Heisman Trophy winner returned to baseball in 2016 for the first time since his freshman year in high school and achieved Triple-A, cheered on by then general manager and current team president Sandy Alderson.
Tebow, who works for ESPN’s SEC Network as a football analyst during the offseason, played 77 games at the highest level of minor league baseball in 2019, batting .163 with four homers. He ended his career with an average of .223 over 287 games.
“I want to thank the Mets, Alderson, the fans and all of my teammates for the chance to be part of such a great organization,” Tebow said in a statement from New York on Wednesday. “I loved every minute of the trip, but at this point I feel called in other directions.
“I never want to be partially involved in anything. I always want to be 100% in whatever I choose. Thank you again for all of you supporting this great journey in baseball, I will always treasure my time.”
A left fielder, the 33-year-old has been invited to major league spring training this season, taking one of New York’s 75 spots after Major League Baseball limited the roster’s size. spring as a precaution against coronaviruses. Position players are not due to show up at the Mets Spring Complex in Port St. Lucia, Fla., Until next week.
In four big league spring practices, Tebow beat .151 in 34 games, logging in for his first and only home run last spring before the camps closed.
“It was a pleasure to have Tim in our organization because he was an accomplished professional during his four years with the Mets,” said Alderson. “By reaching the Triple-A level in 2019, he far exceeded expectations when entering the system in 2016 and he should be very proud of his accomplishments.”
Tebow’s baseball career started off on a high note – he landed his first professional championship game against the St. Louis Cardinals in the fall of 2016. Later that fall he made headlines comforting a fan who had a seizure. at # 1 in Tebow’s Arizona Fall League debut.
The former NFL quarterback was an All-Star at Double-A in 2018, when he hit .273 with six homers in 84 games. He struggled the following year at Triple-A and saw his season cut short by a laceration to his left hand.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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