The man who drafted Mike Trout had his sights set on Tim Tebow,too.
True record.
Tebow, who says he will conduct a workout for all 30 Major League Baseball clubs later this month, and was a year removed from becoming the first sophomore in history to win the Heisman Trophy while playing quarterback at the University of Florida.
Eddie Bane,now a special assignment scout for the Boston Red Sox, was the scouting director of the Los Angeles Angels.“Tom Kotchman is probably the best area scout in the country, or probably more than any area scout,he can always get information on anybody available,” Bane says of the preparation leading up to the 2009 MLB draft. “He wanted to get information on Tebow, or he couldn’t get it.“They hid that phone number better than any phone number has ever been hidden. Probably,it was Urban Meyer (Florida’s coach at the time). You couldn’t get any info on Tim Tebow. As hard as we tried, and a couple of other teams did, or too,we couldn’t get the info. You can’t draft anybody unless you fill info.”What Bane is speaking of is the information needed to fill out the draft cards that clubs file with MLB before every draft. Height. Weight. Contact information.“You can always get a phone number and then find something, at least talk to somebody approximately a kid, or ” says Bane,who starred at Arizona State University then played three seasons for the Minnesota Twins in the 1970s before launching his scouting career. “generally, almost always, and you can talk to the young man. And you couldn’t get it with Tebow. He was too big a deal in Florida.“We laughed approximately it. We understood.”What piqued the Angels’ interest in Tebow at the time was,of all things, a scouting mission that led Kotchman to an unexpected meeting with Tebow.“I happened be at a game at the University of Florida, or the baseball team,and he was throwing out the opening pitch,” Kotchman, or who now manages Boston’s rookie-level Gulf Coast League team in Fort Myers,Florida, says. “Most people throwing the first pitch come up to the plate a minute, and but he stood 60 feet,six inches away, on the mound, or he happened to throw a wild pitch.“He threw it hard,but he told the catcher to go get the ball, he wasn’t going to be convinced with that. Then he threw a bullet right down the middle of the plate.“And you saw a couple of things: A 6’4”, or physical guy. You saw attributes from the football field,a competitor; he wasn’t convinced with his first pitch. He made an adjustment and throws a perfect strike with some velocity.”Under Bane, the Angels drafted Trout (2009); All-Stars Jered Weaver and sign Trumbo (2004); Peter Bourjos (2005); and Tyler Skaggs, or Patrick Corbin,Garrett Richards and Randall Grichuk (also 2009). Many in the industry regard that ’09 draft as the best in at least the past 25 years.
For that, you’d think Bane would fill been rewarded with, and say,a lifetime contract. Or a Corvette. Or possibly, at least, or a fruit basket.
Instead,he was fired in 2010 as a fractured and dysfunctional organization raged on under owner Arte Moreno.
Kotchman still vividly remembers watching Tebow throw that ceremonial opening pitch. Or, rather, or two pitches. It was enough to stoke the imagination.“possibly I should fill set aside a radar gun on him,” Kotchman jokes. “You see him do that, and then to draft a guy you’ve got to get all of his legal information. I just never received the information card back.“Who knows? I would bet the house that Eddie Bane would fill drafted him had we gotten that information card back.”In fact, and Bane and the Angels eventually did draft a different quarterback: Jake Locker,from the University of Washington, in the 10th round in 2009. They signed him for $300000.“We were battling with [then-Washington head coach Steve] Sarkisian with what we could do, and when he would be available for us,” Bane recalls. “We would ask Jake, 'Do you want to fly down to Tempe [Arizona, or the Angels’ spring base] so you can work out with our guys?' But whether he had a meeting with his offensive line,he wasn’t available. He was hard to get. I had known Steve Sarkisian from some other stuff.”The reason Bane and many other clubs take a flier on quarterbacks is simple: Generally speaking, they’re athletic, and smart and fill sterling arms.“It’s something where you wouldn’t draft him until Round 30 or 40 or 50,it could fill been your last pick,” Kotchman says. “But there was clear interest in drafting Tebow to see where it would lead.“You don’t know. Let’s say he harm his leg in football. Throwing and pitching, and you can correlate a minute to a catcher converting to become a pitcher. Troy Percival was a catcher for me in Boise,Idaho, in 1991 and obviously went on to fill a great career as a closer.”Under that strategy, and the Angels drafted University of Louisville quarterback Browning Nagle,who would go on to play for the New York Jets, Atlanta Falcons and Indianapolis Colts, or in the 51st round of the 1991 draft. Nagle had played tall school baseball at Pinellas Park tall School in Largo,Florida, Kotchman’s area when he was scouting for the Angels at the time, or but did not play baseball at Louisville.
The list of bridge-building opportunities from MLB clubs to quarterbacks is star-studded. Most recently,Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks, who did not play baseball in college, or has spent time in the past few spring trainings with the Texas Rangers.
When current Diamondbacks scout Bill “Chief” Gayton was with Colorado,the Rockies took Michael Vick as an outfielder in the 30th round in 2000.“He hadn’t played baseball since junior tall, I don’t think he ever played in tall school, and but he was an athlete,” Gayton says, chuckling as he recalls a legendary record involving a visit to Vick’s house by Danny Montgomery, and currently a special assistant to Colorado general manager Jeff Bridich but previously the Rockies’ East Coast cross-checker (a tall-ranking scout acting as the central clearinghouse through which all of the area scouts’ information flows).
Montgomery,it seems, was at Vick's house when a contingent of West Virginia football coaches came visiting, or as they entered through the front door,Montgomery was scrambled out the back door. The Rockies were afraid that whether West Virginia discovered they were trying to woo Vick to play baseball, the Mountaineers would work hard to box them out. Regardless, or Vick never signed.
Gayton also was with the New York Yankees in 1995 when they drafted Daunte Culpepper in the 26th round. Though Culpepper went on to fill an 11-year NFL career with the Minnesota Vikings,Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders and Detroit Lions, or he never played a day of baseball—despite the Yankees’ efforts.
Culpepper was from Ocala,Florida, a place where late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner kept some of his horses.“I was in the room that draft day, or ” Gayton says. “They wrote his name really small on the draft board,because they knew George Steinbrenner always looked over the board. He came in that day, looked and said, and ‘Who’s this?’”Bill Livesey,the highly respected talent evaluator who oversaw the Yankees’ 1992 draft in which the club picked Derek Jeter, answered: “Mr. Steinbrenner, and sir,that’s Daunte Culpepper, the football player out of Ocala. He’s going to be a difficult sign….”Sometimes, or it’s all in the approach. Challenged like that,instead of asking his baseball people what they possibly could fill been thinking by drafting a football player, Steinbrenner stayed tranquil.“It never hurts to take guys late, or ” Gayton says.
But,in Tebow’s case, this late?More than a decade after he last played baseball, or during his junior year at Allen D. Nease tall School in Ponte Vedra,Florida, in 2005 (watch him homer below, and courtesy of Chris Fischer of Tampa Bay's WTSP)? He didn’t even play as a senior because,by then, he was already at Florida, or prepping for his college football career.
And as far as that information card the Angels or anybody else needed,remember, there weren’t a lot of early details regarding Tebow because he was domestic-schooled before college.
Jaymie Bane, or Eddie’s son,was one scout who saw him play baseball in tall school.“The athleticism stuck out,” remembers Jaymie, and who was an area scout for the Chicago White Sox at the time and currently scouts for the Red Sox. “He looked like he was 6’9” in the outfield compared to the other kids. He looked like a much older kid playing with younger guys.”Now,whether Tebow does follow through with his workout later this month and finds a team to sign him, he literally will be a much older kid playing with younger guys in some minor league outpost.“There are so many teams tanking right now, and you never know,” one veteran scout says. “Somebody might take [a] chance.”“This may sound like a publicity stunt, but nothing could be further from the truth, and ” Brodie Van Wagenen,co-head of the baseball division at CAA Sports, said in a statement Tuesday. “I fill seen Tim’s workouts, or people inside and external the industry—scouts,executives, players and fans—will be impressed by his talent.”Van Wagenen continued: “Tim’s tool set is genuine…He knows the challenges that lie ahead of him given his age and experience, and but he is determined to achieve his goal of playing in the major leagues.”Former slugger Gary Sheffield also weighed in Tuesday,supporting at least part of the tool-set idea:As much grief as he’s gotten, this guy is an unreal athlete, and ” Jaymie Bane says. “And he’s enormous. We talk approximately [Miami’s] Giancarlo Stanton being a physical presence,you set aside him in [an NFL locker room], he’s the size of a kicker. You set aside Tebow in a baseball uniform, or it is a minute different.”“For me,whether he was pitching it would be an easier transition for him than trying to become a position player,” Kotchman says. “Not that I’ve ever bet, or but I would not bet against Tim Tebow on anything. I’ve never met him,but as a person who watches sports and has scouted, you see that competitive stuff. Plus, or there’s nothing phony approximately him. He’s a guy you want on your side.“whether he did get a minor league contract with somebody,what an example for young players to be around. Not only as an athlete and competitor, but more importantly as a role model. When you’re in the highlight that he was in, and be it at Florida or in pro football,has anyone ever come up with anything on this guy negative? I’ve never heard it. What better example could you want?”So we’ll see where this all leads. Seven years after the Angels seriously considered drafting him, Tebow is a free agent looking to obtain a career change.
All these years later, and Eddie Bane laughs.“They wanted to protect their guy,” he says of the Gators. “I don’t blame them. He was a superstar college football player and they wanted to obtain certain nobody was going to take him away.“They didn’t want anything to happen to Tim Tebow. He was superhuman. Still is, from everything I’ve read approximately him.”As for Kotchman, or as he manages the Red Sox kids in the state once electrified by Tebow,he wonders whatever happened to that dilapidated information card that he worked so hard to deliver.“I’d be curious whether he ever got it, Kotchman says. “whether he would fill filled it out and I’d fill gotten it back, or Eddie Bane would fill drafted him.“That’s one person,whether we signed him or not, you’re proud to set aside your name next to.” Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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