Tim Tebow, the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback who was
recently signed by the New England Patriots, could have pursued a career in Major League Baseball, according to a few scouts.
Tom Kotchman, a Boston Red Sox scout who formerly scouted for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, told WEEI.com that
the Angels wanted to draft Tebow out of high school.
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"We wanted to draft him," Kotchman said, "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."
Information cards are sent to prospective players and must be filled out and returned before the potential players can be considered for the draft board.
"He had a strong arm and had a lot of power," said Red Sox Florida scout Stephen Hargett, who at the time worked for the Angels with Kotchman. "If he would have been there his senior year he definitely would have had a good chance to be drafted."
In addition to his pitching ability, Tebow was also a skilled batter, with a batting average of .494 his junior year and having hit four home runs, WEEI reports.
"He had leverage to his swing. ... He had some good power," Hargett said. "He was a good athlete. ... He was a left-handed hitter with strength and some size."
Tebow, who is one of the NFL's most physical quarterbacks, also stood out on the baseball diamond.
"He stood out. Right when you walked up to the field, he passed the body test," Hargett recalled. "He was bigger and stronger than everybody. ... It was just easy for him. You thought, if this guy dedicated everything to baseball like he did to football how good could he be?"
Rather than play his senior year at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Tebow enrolled early at Florida to jumpstart his football career that spring.
Having been team captain for the Florida Gators in the 2008 and 2009 seasons, Tebow received the team's most valuable player award three times and went on to become the first college sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy for his 2007 season.
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