Russell Wilson is in camp with the Yankees for spring training as, essentially, a publicity stunt.
Wilson does at least have professional baseball experience; he was drafted by the Orioles out of high school but chose football at N.C. State instead. Then the Rockies drafted him again in 2010, and he spent a few summers playing baseball in the Rockies organization while maintaining his college football career.
Considering Wilson slashed .228/.366/.342 as a 22-year-old in A ball back in 2011, he pretty clearly picked the right sport. But that hasn’t stopped teams from trading his baseball rights around in order to bring him to spring training to generate some headlines, have him give motivational talks to the team, and sell a few extra tickets to autograph seekers.
That’s what the Yankees did early last month, trading “future considerations” to the Texas Rangers for Wilson’s rights. Today, he actually got into a spring training game, which wasn’t originally going to happen. It ended as you’d expect:
Maybe not the result @DangeRussWilson wanted, but a fun cameo for the fans (and it looks like Wilson, too). #YANKSonYES pic.twitter.com/RZ3LFawpnf
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) March 2, 2018
In other football players trying baseball news, Tim Tebow was in action for the Mets, where he (checks notes) lined a base hit? Seriously? Let’s go to the tape:
https://twitter.com/AnthonyDiComo/status/969654047518150657
Before you get too concerned that Tebow was going off-brand by actually getting a hit, let’s review what he said about Max Scherzer, who retired him his first at-bat:
https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/969668925242867713?s=19
That’s better. Equilibrium has been restored.
