The stubbornness of self-image

 Tim Tebow announced his retirement from baseball the other day, and you probably never knew it. 

This is not because you are inattentive. This is because the human radar has only a limited range, and Tebow has been well beyond it for awhile now.

When he retired, see, he did not retire as a major leaguer. He retired as a guy who'd been bouncing around the minor leagues for five years, just like a thousand other guys. And, like a thousand other guys, he had very little to show for it.

His career numbers: 287 games at various levels, and a .223 batting average.

Truth is, he was never a prospect. He only gave baseball a whirl because A) he's a terrific athlete who was a terrific baseball player once upon a time, and B) he'd washed out of professional football at his chosen position. The Mets signed him to a minor-league deal because, what the hell, the price was right and maybe they could stick him in a few spring games with the big club and draw a few more fans.

Which is essentially all that happened.

But enough about baseball. The meat of Tim Tebow's story, and the place where all the what-ifs live, revolve around football. It's an old story, but never did it play out in such a glaring spotlight.

A quarterbacking legend in high school and college, Tebow became a legend of sorts in the NFL not because of his skill set, but because he was a charismatic, fervently Christian man who arrived in the league with great fanfare. The media quickly became obsessed with him, and then became more obsessed with him when he had that brief, magical run with the Denver Broncos.

Unfortunately, the run lasted only a handful of games. After that, it became more and more apparent that Tebow's skill set did not translate well to pro football. He became an uncommon example of a dirt-common NFL trope: The big-deal college quarterback who turns out to be an ordinary (or worse) pro quarterback.

The lucky ones recognize their limitations and find another niche in the pro game. Oklahoma's masterful Wishbone quarterback from the 1970s, Jack Mildren, wound up playing defensive back in the NFL. Julian Edelman, Tom Brady's go-to possession receiver with the Patriots, was a quarterback at Kent State. Ditto Antwaan Randle-El of the Steelers, who was a dynamic college QB at Indiana but found his place in the NFL as a kick returner and receiver. 

None of them, however, entered the NFL with Tebow's hype. It can be blinding, that hype, and ultimately crippling. And so the great what-if with Tebow is where his path would have led had he not been blinded by the media's obsession with him.

Because, see, Tebow could have played in the NFL. He might even have excelled. But he was never going to excel at quarterback.

You wonder to this day, for example (or at least the Blob does), what would have happened had  Tebow been willing to expand his horizons. At 6-foot-3 and 255 pounds, and gifted with uncommon athleticism for a man that size, he could have been a Julian Edelman as an H-back or a tight end. Wisely deployed, he could have been great in that role.

But he wouldn't hear of it. And it's hard to blame him for that, because he'd been a star quarterback all his life, and all he'd ever heard was he was destined to be a star quarterback in the NFL. Tough to see beyond that, with that spotlight in your eyes.

And so he wound up in an instructional league for the New York Mets instead.

And we will always be left to wonder.