A funny thing happened on the way to the circus:
Tim Tebow, it turns out, can play a little. This probably comes as a surprise to you, because it almost certainly comes as a surprise to the Mets. The only people this doesn’t surprise, in truth, are those Tebow acolytes willing to believe he’s capable of just about anything.
It was 12 days ago that Sandy Alderson tried to throw cold water on the notion the Mets were pondering Tebow as a call-up after Sept. 1, when rosters can expand from 25 to 40.
“Never crossed my mind until about 10 days ago, when somebody said it was likely to happen,” Alderson said then. “I don’t foresee that kind of scenario.”
Of course, it was 12 days before that when Alderson offered the least-surprising Tebow observation ever uttered by a member of Mets brass when he had said: “Look, we signed him because he is a good guy, partly because of his celebrity, partly because this is an entertainment business. My attitude is, ‘Why not?’ ”
There are plenty of sound business reasons why it would have been wise anyway to keep Tebow away from Citi Field as some kind of marketing ploy, beginning with the very credibility of the franchise, which is supposed to be in the business of developing baseball players, not carnival barkers.
But now they have the best reason of all to forget about that.
What if Tebow really is what these last 28 games and 92 at-bats have hinted at? In the Florida State League, the most advanced level of Class-A ball, he’s hitting .315 after going 3-for-5 against Bradenton Wednesday night, with an eye-raising OPS of .922.
To find a higher number than that on the St. Lucie Mets’ roster, you stop at names like Michael Conforto and Wilmer Flores and Juan Lagares and Lucas Duda, members of the varsity Mets who made brief rehab appearances at Port St. Lucie.
Look, the odds remain heavily stacked against Tebow, who three weeks shy of 30 is still three steep steps away from the majors. But this is also true: There was no way to foresee even these past 28 games and 92 at-bats. And what he has done is raise the possibility — however remote it may still seem — that he really might be a player, and not just a jersey.
So it would behoove both the Mets and Tebow to proceed accordingly. Under no circumstance would a player — even one enjoying a breakout year — make the jump from Port. St. Lucie to Flushing. To do that to Tebow would only exacerbate the notion he’s a freak show.
As recently as a month ago, when he was still scuffling in the Sally League with Columbia, that’s what it seemed the Mets were cultivating, a baseball bearded lady for a three-ring circus. But Tebow has made that cloud go away the only way he could: five doubles, a triple, four homers, 16 RBIs, a .400 on-base percentage.
Based on this season, there will be 95 percent less snickering if Tebow starts next year at Double-A Binghamton, and even less if he hits his way to Triple-A Las Vegas. And then …
OK. Slow it down. Again: Tebow is still the longest of long shots, and 28 games at the doorstep of 30 doesn’t guarantee anything. But the Mets don’t need Tebow to artificially enhance their September gate assuming they remain far out of the playoff hunt: That’s what Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith are for.
What the Mets couldn’t possibly have banked on was the notion of Tim Tebow and legitimacy arriving in the same paragraph together. But that’s happened. No need to invite the circus to town.
And make no mistake: It would be a circus of spectacular proportions. We are not a college football city, so we really have little idea just how big Tebow remains among the parishioners of Saturday’s football pulpits. Every time I am on an out-of-town radio show talking about the Mets — Every. Single. Time. — Tebow is the one subject that always comes up. Not Jacob deGrom. Not Yoenis Cespedes. Not Conforto.
All Tebow. All the time. Maybe Alderson was serious, and maybe the plan was to keep Citi Field spared of all that this September. But it would have been tempting. Now? You wouldn’t ever expose a real prospect to that kind of ridicule. And amazing as this sentence is to contemplate, it’s even more astonishing to write:
It’s right to treat Tim Tebow like a real prospect, because he just might be one.