Minoring in Twitter: Reactions to Tim Tebow’s pants, 4 a.m. bus meltdown, Kaepernick opinions

Danny Wild

Published in

MiLB.com’s PROSPECTive Blog

4 min readSep 2, 2016

By dannywild2013

By Danny Wild / MiLB.com

Tim Tebow took his first big step toward living the high life in the Minors (see our 4 a.m. bus breakdown drama below!), working out for 200 or so folks at USC on Tuesday, with most of the assembled onlookers being Major League scouts and media members. Tebow? He’s confident. The scouts? They’re cautiously optimistic. According to the LA Times:

Scouts queried agreed that Tebow is likely to be signed and assigned to the lower levels of the Minors, perhaps high Class A or Double-A, as a corner outfielder.

First of all, Double-A is not a “low level” of the Minors. I would be stunned if Tebow was sent to a Double-A team to open the 2017 season, or even a Class A Advanced club. But could we see Tebow sign, get a crash-course in baseball at instructs and then spend the offseason working closely with coaches to learn the basic (and finer) points of the game? Sure. Tebow at Class A next April would be a great story.

For those not familiar, Tebow won the Heisman Trophy as college football’s top player while at Florida before an up-and-down NFL career that saw him lead the Denver Broncos to the playoffs and then basically get discarded by the Jets, Patriots and Eagles, effectively ending his football career. He’s remained popular (and polarizing) as he works as an analyst for ESPN. Earlier this summer he surprised us all by pursuing a career in professional baseball, a game he hasn’t played since he was a high school junior. His workout Tuesday was attended by every Major League team except the Cubs, Giants and Athletics. Red Sox GM Dave Dombrowski said his team wouldn’t be “rushing out to make a signing,” but Tebow’s agent said five or six teams expressed interest.

According to the LA Times report, Tebow’s agent, Brodie Van Wagenen, noted that “teams expressed immediate interest after the tryout.”

But what did actual professional baseball players think of Tebow’s power, speed and outfield arm?

Tim Dillard recaps the Colorado Springs Sky Sox’s thoughts on Tebow:

Colin Kaepernick stirs up debate

Another NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, has accomplished much of what he intended to do this week: create an on-going debate/dialogue about American values, freedoms and society in general. Kaepernick has decided not to stand during the National Anthem before football games, and sports fans have taken the behavior down a few different paths. Minor Leaguers? They also chimed in:

Minor Leaguers love riding buses

Hey, it’s September, so our days of players whining about 19-hour bus rides through Iowa are growing slim. Enjoy ’em while they last:

Hot Rods’ 4 a.m. bus meltdown

The Class A Bowling Green Hot Rods could have used some actual hot rods to get from “middle of nowhere Ohio” to Lake County, which I’m guessing is also middle of nowhere Ohio.

Hot Rods radio announcer Alex Cohen takes over, documenting the entire nightmare:

“Sun beginning to rise”

Grab your pillows boys, the new wheels are here!

They look like Little Leaguers on a school field trip, holding their baseball gloves and pillows while the adults talk things over:

But this story has a happy ending! The Hot Rods earned a trip to the Midwest League playoffs three days later, which means more baseball and more bus trips through Kentucky and Ohio!

Pigs in the community:

Micah Johnson says he did pretty well in his fantasy football draft (for the record, I got an A- in mine):

Bakersfield’s days in the Cal League are numbered, but they made the playoffs:

Stay tuned:

Good luck Florida: