Tim Tebow to Make Minor League Debut This Week

Former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow joins minor league baseball team, the Columbia Fireflies, this week making his debut in pro baseball as the team’s left fielder.

Tebow signed a minor league contract with the Fireflies after announcing last year that he intended to pursue his college sport of baseball. Tebow earned the contact after a tryout for the New York Mets at this year’s spring training.

Tebow himself assured the media that he isn’t dismissing his minor league contract and is treating it like a real job, the Associated Press reported.

“For me, this is not like a vacation. This is not something I want to do for publicity,” Tebow insisted “This is a business trip. This is work.”

Fireflies manager Jose Leger also added that Tebow will play serious ball and will not be treated as a sideshow act.

“I think he’s going to serve more of an asset to the players,” Leger added. “He brings a lot of experience to the table. I think more than anything, he’ll bring motivation and a spark on the team.”

In October, during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Tebow admitted that he always had more passion for baseball than football.

“It’s amazing when you do something for the love of it,” the Heisman Trophy winner said of his switch from pro football to baseball. “I’m so passionate about the game and pursuing it and playing every day is just so much fun.”

Tebow revisited that theme with his debut in Columbia. “I still love the game of football and sometimes I miss it. But I’m pursuing something else that I love. You can love more than one thing and I love what I’m doing right now,” he said on Sunday.

Last year, as Tebow began training to take his shot at pro baseball, MLB Hall of Famer and former Chicago White Sox first baseman Frank Thomas told “The Herd” that Tebow was always better at baseball.

“I think Tim Tebow was a better baseball player than he was a football player. I think Urban Meyer kept Tim Tebow from playing baseball at the University of Florida. He was a heck of a high school baseball player,” Thomas said. “Urban loves him and would not let him play college baseball. I think Tim Tebow’s a better baseball player than he was a football player.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.