Mahomes received only three scholarship offers to play football, and ended up committing to Texas Tech.
I’m not even sure pitching was the best thing he did.”īaseball America agreed that he may have had a future as a hitter, writing in their scouting report that “some evaluators like him better as a hitter who is an average runner with plus raw power from a raw offensive approach.” … He might have ended up being a center fielder and hitting third in your lineup.
He’s got the stuff that tells you he’s going to be good. But it’s so easy to watch a kid play and you see he’s having fun, and above and beyond the ability. So you see a kid and you start seeing the tools come together. Tigers area scout Tim Grieve called him “one of the better athletes I’ve covered in East Texas in my 15 years” and suggested he could have had success either on the mound or in the outfield. Instead, Detroit took a flyer on him in round 37. Had he been more open to signing with a MLB team, he likely would have gone in the first 15 rounds. But he would be bested by Mahomes, who struck out 16 in a no-hitter and a 2-1 victory.īaseball America ranked him as the 419th-best prospect in that draft that spring, ahead of current big leaguers like Caleb Smith, Scott Heineman, and Trevor Oaks. Kopech - who would be the 33rd player selected overall in the MLB draft that June - tossed a one-hitter with 12 strikeouts. Still, some 40 scouts came to see him face off in the playoffs against pitcher Michael Kopech, now a top prospect in the White Sox organization.
He drew the attention of pro baseball scouts, but insisted he was committed to play college football. That would pretty much seal his fate as a football star.īut Mahomes continued to excel on the baseball diamond. After playing at safety in his sophomore season, he took the starting quarterback job in his third game of his junior season and happened to have a big game during a rainstorm while an assistant from Texas Tech was in attendance. He loved football, but was ready to give the sport up before his junior year before his mother, Randi, convinced him to stick with it.
(via /7W6D6Z7adX- Cut4 January 19, 2020Įarly on in high school, it seemed like baseball would be Mahomes’ ticket to professional sports.
When he was 14, he played shortstop for a team from Tyler, Texas that reached the finals of the 2010 Junior League World Series.įrom the Little League World Series to the Super Bowl, does it all! The younger Mahomes had a good arm that impressed coaches on the mound, and a solid bat to boot. He did spend a season near the end of his career in the Royals organization, pitching in seven games for Triple-A Omaha in 2006. It is well known that his father, Pat Mahomes, enjoyed an 11-year MLB career as a pitcher, playing mostly for the Twins. Mahomes is better known for his football acumen, but you have thought baseball would be his true calling at one point. Brady was selected in the 18th round of the 1995 draft out of high school by the Montreal Expos, while Mahomes was selected in the 37th round of the 2014 draft by the Detroit Tigers. The two quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, are known for being among the greatest in the game, but another trait they share is that they were both selected in the Major League Baseball draft.
The Kansas City Chiefs will play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a chance to win their second consecutive championship. Oh, looks like First Take decided to spend the morning debating “Will Arch Manning become the greatest Manning yet?” Too late.You may not know this, but there is a big game - a super big game - involving our friends across the parking lot this weekend. Until then, enjoy a likely steady stream of viral throws, and try not to judge the kid too much. By then he’ll likely have committed to Clemson, LSU or Ole Miss. When should we expect to see Arch on a national stage? He has two more years at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans (the same high school his dad, uncles and Odell Beckham Jr. Eli commented: “I taught him that.” (The rest of the internet commented: “No, Peyton did.” Or some variation on “Somewhere, Tom Brady is screaming.”) After years of diligently keeping him out of the spotlight, his grandfather couldn’t help gushing at the end of Arch’s freshman season that he looked “better than Peyton and Eli at the same age.”Īnd now, Eli is online publicly goofing off over both Arch’s throw and the little ball flip the rising high school junior manages to pull off after making a convincing pump fake. A post shared by ESPN throw has already gone viral around the internet, and it’s a sign that the family is finally ready to start acknowledging the youngest Manning’s talent and inevitable celebrity.