KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Baseball was Patrick Mahomes’ first (athletic) love.
He spent time as a wee tyke in major-league clubhouses with his father, Pat Mahomes Sr., who went 42-39 with a 5.47 ERA in 308 appearances with six different teams during an 11-year MLB career.
Mahomes, a three-time Super Bowl champion and two-time NFL MVP, was a good enough baseball player for the Detroit Tigers to select him in the 37th round of the 2014 MLB First-Year Player Draft.
Certainly, sticking with football appears to have been a savvy move for the younger Mahomes, who's already a future Pro Football Hall of Famer at age 29 and has become a ubiquitous pitch man in national commercials as the NFL’s new leading man.
But baseball remains close to Mahomes’ heart. He bought a stake in the Royals’ ownership group in June 2020.
So, yes, Mahomes was as anxious as any other Kansas City sports fan Monday with Game 2 of the ALDS going on at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx simultaneously with the Chiefs’ Monday Night Football beatdown of New Orleans at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
He said he tried to ignore the game, but the energy inside Arrowhead made that impossible. When Salvador Perez homered to light the fuse on a four-run inning, the buzz worked its way through Chiefs Kingdom as well.
“You could feel that that stuff was going good,” Mahomes said.
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He noticed the couple times when the Arrowhead video boards flashed scores from New York with the Royals in front.
“But there was kind of a lull there towards the end of the game and I was like, ‘They’re not showing the score; the Yankees came back,’” Mahomes said.
They hadn’t, of course.
The Royals didn’t pad their lead, but Bobby Witt Jr. made a diving stop for a key double play in the eighth inning and Lucas Erceg worked around a ninth-inning solo home run to lock up a 4-2 win.
The ALDS heads to Kauffman Stadium for Games 3 and 4 on Wednesday and Thursday all square in the best-of-five series.
Mahomes plans to “go to at least one of the Royals games” and spend time with his kids during the bye week.
“Brittany’s vacation and me getting to the Royals game will feud, for sure,” Mahomes said.
Linebacker Drue Tranquill is among other Chiefs players who’ve hopped on the bandwagon.
“It’s awesome for the people of Kansas City, having two games going on at once,” Tranquill said. “Obviously, we’re excited for the Royals. They evened the series with the Yankees (at 1-1), so that’s huge.”
Tranquill arrived for Monday’s game in a Witt jersey.
“He’s balling this year,” Tranquill, who made five tackles, said. “He’s putting on for the people of Kansas City and hopefully they can keep it going.”
Defensive tackle Chris Jones, who finished with two tackles and one QB pressure, arrived in a throwback Bo Jackson Royals jersey.
Even Saints kicker Blake Grupe, a Sedalia native, got into the Blue October spirit, sporting a Royals jersey as he walked into Arrowhead.
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