Tim Tebow's story of helping a stricken fan will melt your cold, cold heart

The legend of Tebow is back

Tim Tebow of the New York Mets speaks at a press conference after a work out at an instructional league day at Tradition Field on September 20, 2016 in Port St. Lucie, Florida. (Rob Foldy/Getty)

Tim Tebow's return to athletic pursuits took a surreal turn that only added to his legend when, after his very first game with the New York Mets' Arizona Fall League team, he stopped signing autographs to comfort and pray with a fan who had suffered a seizure.

Tebow, who became a lightning rod for praise and criticism for wearing his faith on his sleeve during the heady NFL days of Tebowmania, may no longer play football, but he appears to not have wavered in living his beliefs. Brandon Berry, a 30-year-old man from Avondale, Ariz., briefly lost consciousness during the health episode Tuesday and was released from a hospital that day after being checked out. Tebow was signing autographs after his Scottsdale Scorpions game in Glendale, Arizona, when Berry collapsed.

"Let me ask you a question: What would be more important, that I go to the locker room and I get on the bus and we get back a little bit quicker?" Tebow said Wednesday (via ESPN). "In my opinion, it's not even a choice. It's the right thing to do. It's what you're supposed to do, in my opinion.

"You just try to, in those moments, be there for people to help people. Because there is not a bigger, better, greater thing you can do in life than to be there for people in a time of need to help them."

Eerily, Berry regained consciousness as Tebow placed a hand upon him.

"The guy that I was signing for, he turned to his right, and I could see on his face something happened," Tebow said. "So then I looked over. I saw Brandon, right as he was getting to the ground and going into a seizure. I just wanted to be there and pray for him."

Don't, he insists, use the "m" word to describe this.

"As far as me and a miracle, no," Tebow said, "but in the God that we serve, yeah, I do believe in miracles."

Born to missionaries who were working in the Philippines, Tebow has shown a particular interest in kids, often ill children to his NFL games, and his foundation was "created primarily to show God's love to children around the world," he wrote in a mission statement. As for his first two games in baseball, Tebow is hitless in six at-bats; he did get an RBI, though, when he beat out a double-play ball.

"People are what's important," he told reporters Wednesday, "and an opportunity to help someone is more important than anything that I could have possibly done on a baseball diamond that day."

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