How baseball, Derek Jeter and the Mets prepared Patrick Mahomes for NFL stardom

MIAMI — The memory came one Sunday last year. Bobby Valentine was watching football and Patrick Mahomes was playing quarterback, and the former Mets manager couldn’t stop thinking back to a morning at spring training, to a pitcher fielding practice session on a baseball field in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

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Valentine says his friends have called BS on this, that they don’t believe that one little hip movement could mean so much. But there are some things you don’t forget, and when Mahomes rolled to his right, tilted his pelvis upward and fired a sidearm throw through traffic, Valentine knew: He’d seen that before.

“When Pat went to his right, to the third-base line and threw the ball (to first),” Valentine says. “I could see that same kind of image.”

Pat, in this case, is Pat Mahomes, the father of the wunderkind quarterback who has led the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl in 50 years. Valentine is the baseball manager who remembers both from two seasons in New York. Pat was the journeyman reliever who finished 8-0 in 1999, helping the Mets reach the National League Championship Series. Patrick was the 4-year-old who toddled around the clubhouse and joined the club’s postgame “conga line” tradition.

“Cute as can be,” Valentine says. “Jumping up to get a high-five.”

By now, Mahomes’ journey to NFL superstardom is fully entwined with the sport of baseball. Influenced by his father’s career and inspired by his days in the clubhouse, he grew up swinging a bat and shagging balls during batting practice. He took swings with Alex Rodriguez and ground balls with Derek Jeter. He dreamed of being both — so much so that people once thought Patrick was A-Rod’s son. He spent hours taking ground balls at shortstop. He patrolled the outfield before Game 3 of the 2000 World Series. His father was convinced his son’s future was in baseball.

That time baby Patrick Mahomes hung out with the Yankees and Derek Jeter shared some of his power with him.

— Joe Randazzo (Bronx Pinstripes crew) (@deflategator) January 12, 2020

“He got to see what it was like to be a professional and how they go about their business,” Pat Mahomes said in an interview with The Athletic last year. “Just (soaking) it all in.”

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By now, the story of Patrick Mahomes and baseball has been told and documented and told again, from segments on Monday Night Football to every cutaway to his father in a suite. Yet there is something in the relationship that is often missed, something that became more evident to Valentine the more he watched, something that Mahomes himself acknowledges.

Mahomes didn’t become the best quarterback in the world because he chose to quit baseball and focus on football during his days at Texas Tech. He became the quarterback he is because of baseball.

Pat Mahomes arrived in New York in May 1999, a veteran reliever seeking a career restart. In most ways, the Mets offered just that. Pat had grown up a Mets fan, marveling at the exploits of Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. At age 28, he felt starved for major league innings. He had struggled in Minnesota and got knocked around in Boston. He carried a healthy perspective after spending the previous year in Japan. He also, at times, brought along his young son Patrick.

To that point, the younger Mahomes hadn’t spent much time at his father’s workplace. The Mets would offer his first window into professional sports.

“He got really involved when I got with the Mets,” Pat Mahomes said.

In 1999, the Mets were an ascending club with Mike Piazza, a talented infield group and a decade-long playoff drought. Pat just wanted to stick in the major leagues, to pitch and contribute. In his first season in New York, Valentine would come to see him as a trusted member of the bullpen. He finished 8-0 with a 3.68 ERA. He logged innings during a tense September playoff chase. On June 9, he earned a win by throwing three scoreless innings in the infamous game in which Valentine donned sunglasses and a fake mustache and returned to the dugout after being ejected.

June 9, 1999: After being ejected in the 12th inning by plate umpire Randy Marsh, Bobby Valentine returns to the dugout with a fake mustache and glasses. The National League will suspends him for two games and fine him for using the disguise.

— Mets Rewind (@metsrewind) June 9, 2019

“Things were really tense at that point with the team,” Valentine said. “And he kind of smiled his way through it, pitching in New York in tough situations like that. He never faltered.”

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Valentine says he loved Pat’s competitiveness. He also enjoyed his warm presence in the clubhouse and his ability to fit in. “His smile,” he says. More than that, though, he loved his athleticism. Pat would glide around the outfield during batting practice. He was a solid golfer who played with fellow Mets reliever Turk Wendell. He was, according to former teammates, a great basketball player. “He could have played center field for us,” Valentine says. And he could handle a bat so well that Valentine would often insert him into mopup situations and allow him to hit.

“I loved having Pat on the team,” Valentine says. “It was just that simple.”

Pat Mahomes would last 11 years in the major leagues, but unlike his son, he was not a star. Instead, he focused on becoming the sort of teammate guys respected. “Just a good guy to be around,” Wendell said. Kirby Puckett, the late Twins outfielder, once said that Pat was the most talented pitcher on the Minnesota roster. That was in 1995, when Mahomes finished with a 6.37 ERA.

The sport of baseball was not always kind, but it did have its moments and lessons. It introduced him to LaTroy Hawkins, a teammate who would become his son’s godfather and mentor. It allowed him to bring Patrick to the 2000 World Series.

In the moments before Game 3 against the Yankees, the younger Mahomes put on a Mets jersey and pinstriped pants and headed out to shag baseballs during batting practice. Some teammates wondered if a 5-year-old should be out amidst the flying baseballs and chaos at Shea Stadium. Mahomes always held his own.

In a now famous photo, captured by the Associated Press, you can see Mahomes, tracking backward and in sync with pitcher Mike Hampton. At 5 years old, he is focused and locked in, his eyes following the flight of the baseball. As Hampton told The New York Post last week: “You could tell, the athleticism, it’s just different.”

The next year, Pat signed with the Texas Rangers, taking a job closer to his Texas home. Patrick became a regular at The Ballpark in Arlington, receiving tips from Rodriguez and taking swings in the batting cage. During one home series against the Yankees, he spent time at shortstop, taking grounders with Jeter.

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“I remember being out there at shortstop,” Mahomes says, “(and) him saying, ‘What’s up?’ to me.”

Afterwards, Jeter signed a few things and wrote a short note.

5-year old Patrick Mahomes shagging fly balls with Mike Hampton during BP at 2000 World Series

— 1970s Baseball (@70sBaseball) January 16, 2019

Years later, Mahomes says, the memory took on new meaning. He spent years internalizing the meaning of baseball — the failure, the preparation, the daily grind. Jeter was one of the best players in the game, Mahomes says, and he still showed up each day, seeking to get better. In time, the sport (and the lesson) became a part of who he was.

“It showed me,” Mahomes says, “a lot about what it took to be a pro.”

When Mahomes was playing quarterback at Texas Tech, he and a backup named Nic Shimonek would spend time during 7-on-7 practices trying to emulate the unique arm angles of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. In football parlance, the throws are considered “off-platform.” Mahomes became obsessed.

He rolled to his right and zipped passes sidearm. He experimented with no-look tosses and deep balls from all angles. In moments, Mahomes says, it was like he was back playing shortstop.

“You have to be able to make throws from any platform and still be accurate,” Mahomes says. “It’s something I feel like I’m able to do in the NFL now.”

As a child, Mahomes played so much shortstop that his arm — and his muscle memory — began to adjust to the needs of the position. He made so many plays in the hole, so many plays up the middle, so many plays in which his feet were not quite underneath him, that his core started to strengthen naturally. He played long toss, strengthening his arm, and he turned double plays, polishing his different arm angles. He would hit 96 mph from the mound as a teenager. When he started playing quarterback at Whitehouse (Texas) High School, he realized he already had most of the throws in his arsenal. A grounder up the middle was the same as scrambling to his left and firing on the run; a play in the hole was the same as moving to his right, planting his foot and throwing deep; a slow chopper was not unlike a sidearm throw on the run; and starting a 6-4-3 double play was the same arm action as a quick screen pass.

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“The one that he looks like a great shortstop is when he rolls left and he has to turn his (right) shoulder back, like when a shortstop goes up the middle,” Valentine says. “He definitely looks like an All-Star shortstop when he does that.”

Mahomes across his body 😲#INDvsKC 📺: KSHB

— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) October 7, 2019

One of those moments came last season, when Valentine, now the athletic director at Sacred Heart University, was tuning in to watch football. For a moment, Valentine says, he could see the resemblance, that the quarterback making all the ridiculous plays was indeed related to the pitcher he once managed. Yet there was something different, too, and this point is important. He had never seen anything quite like Mahomes.

“I had one guy as a nice reliable pitcher,” Valentine says, “and the other guy is the best player I’ve ever seen on a football field.”

(Top photo of Mahomes in his dad’s old Mets jersey: Ed Zurga/AP Photo)