Imrem: It really does take all kinds

So, Tim Tebow wants to play baseball and Tommy La Stella doesn't.

Wait, stop, that's not exactly true.

La Stella reportedly wants to play only for the Cubs, not for another major-league team or in the minor leagues.

As for Tebow, he might want to begin a baseball career or he might just want to pretend that he wants to.

Who knows for sure what either is up to?

Regardless, how dare La Stella and Tebow not live by our rules and on our timeline?

How dare La Stella indicate that he could be better off doing something other than what most people would like to do - be paid to play baseball?

How dare Tebow delude himself into thinking he could begin a baseball career in his late 20s, or simply want to embarrass himself in front of TV cameras, or foist a con job on a gullible public?

Get over it, people, because athletes are people too. Our logic is their illogic and vice versa. Our sanity is their insanity and vice versa.

Many sports fans don't understand what either La Stella or Tebow is thinking.

Why, they wonder, doesn't La Stella just report to Triple-A and get on with his baseball career?

Why doesn't Tebow just run away from home, join a real circus and get on with his life?

Why, why, why don't they just do what we would do and when we think they should do it?

Because they aren't us, that's why, and happiness is in the heart of the beholder.

Athletes have minds of their own, motives of their own and priorities of their own.

Just as we do.

Not everyone is married to a profession the way many Cubs fans want La Stella to be. Nor is everyone married to celebrity the way Tebow is.

What makes no sense to the masses makes perfect sense to La Stella and Tebow.

La Stella apparently wants to continue playing baseball only on his own terms. Tebow apparently wants to live life on his own terms.

To each his own.

At La Stella's relatively modest size, it takes considerable pride, stubbornness and defiance to reach the major leagues.

When a player like that knows he should be on the Cubs' 25-man roster, he doesn't easily accept being sent down to Des Moines because he has a minor-league option left and Chris Coghlan doesn't.

All La Stella knows is that he has produced more than Coghlan as an extra left-handed batter.

Sports is supposed to be the ultimate meritocracy, isn't it? La Stella will hang up, sit at home and wait for your answer.

Then there's Tim Tebow.

Hey, big guy, you already failed at being an NFL player and now you're headed toward failing to becoming an MLB player … or a cable reality series, if that's what's behind all this.

As much as La Stella doesn't want to be defined as an athlete, Tebow seems to want to be defined as a guy who needs celebrity.

Maybe Tebow soon will come to his senses - our senses, that is - and forget about whatever reason he is considering this baseball thing.

Also, odds are that La Stella will come to what the masses believe should be his senses and report to the minor leagues.

Even then, we won't be able to understand Tim Tebow or Tommy La Stella because we aren't like them and they aren't like us.

Just keep reminding yourself that it takes all kinds to populate the world generally and sports specifically.

mimrem@dailyherald.com