Patrick Mahomes Sr. has had his share of problems the last few years, battling the demons of alcohol. According to Addiction Statistics, about 20 percent of American adults (about 28 million people) have an alcohol use disorder; only about 7 percent of those people ever get treatment.
While battling those issues, he’s also experienced tremendous joy watching his son Patrick Mahomes Jr. rise to legendary status in the NFL after just six seasons as starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Mahomes is trying to win his third Super Bowl today, and his father, who was released on a $10,000 bond in relation to his third offense driving while intoxicated arrest in Tyler, Texas, on Saturday, Feb. 3, will probably be somewhere in the building.
He lives for these moments, as he told the Shadow League in an exclusive interview in 2020, after Patrick Jr. took the NFL world by storm, becoming the second-youngest QB to win a Super Bowl behind Ben Roethlisberger and just the third Black QB to do it, joining Doug Williams and Russell Wilson.
“The Super Bowl win brings us great pleasure,” Mahomes Sr. told The Shadow League. “Knowing all of the hard work is paying off and hopefully, there’s more great things to come. As a dad, I feel grateful that all the things I thought I saw were real. Just very proud of the man he has become and the way he carries himself.”
Patrick Mahomes Sr. Laid the Foundation: Baseball Built The Family Bond
Over the years, we have kept in contact with Pat Sr. and his endeavors.
Everybody makes mistakes, but in no way do Mahomes Sr.’s current trials and tribulations reflect his impact, influence and obviously consistent work as a father.
Mahomes, 53, who could face between two and 10 years in prison in relation to the third DUI offense, saw greatness in his oldest son, the same potential that Mahomes Sr.’s dad saw in him as the family bond was built through baseball.
“A love of baseball was passed down through generations,” Mahomes Sr. said. “I learned the game from my father who played semi-pro baseball. He started me playing when I was 4 years old and I always excelled at it. That was the game that I was most comfortable with. I actually signed a scholarship to play basketball at Arkansas, but once I got drafted I decided to go to the Twins and went from there.”
Patrick Mahomes Sr. Was MLB Pitcher From 1992-2003
Pat was an MLB journeyman from 1992 to 2003, playing for several squads, including the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs, and Pittsburgh Pirates. He also pitched in Japan for two seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball in 1997 and 1998 for the Yokohama BayStars.
“I kind of bumped into baseball.” Mahomes Sr. told TSL. “I was supposed to get drafted as an outfielder out of Lindale High School in Texas, where I played varsity baseball, basketball, and football. The MLB scouts would come and watch me play. One day, one of the pitchers on the team got hurt and the coach brought me in to pitch. I was throwing 91-92 miles per hour at the time and I pitched well.”
“Once they saw that I had a live arm, the scouts would come to the game and have me pitch a bullpen session on the side, but they were still more interested in me being a hitter. The Minnesota Twins — who I never spoke to during the draft process — selected me in the sixth round of the 1988 MLB draft as a pitcher. Once I signed to play pro ball I was determined to give pitching everything I had.”
Pat Sr. compiled a winning 42-39 record with 450 K’s in his MLB career. The 1999 season is what he describes as his “best and my most memorable one,” going 8-0, undefeated for the season on a New York Mets team that should have won the World Series but ended up losing in the NLCS.
“It’s probably the best team I’ve ever been on,” Mahomes Sr. said.
Before his son started winning Super Bowls, Pat Sr. says his best pro sports moment was going to the World Series in 2000 and playing in a Subway Series against the Yankees.
“I developed many relationships and was able to live out a dream and lay the foundation for my son Patrick’s success. Everyone needs a good mentor.”
Patrick Sr. had one of the best mentors MLB could offer.
“Probably the most influential person that I met in my career was Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett, when I first went to the Twins. He was the guy who really taught me about work ethic and how to be a professional, traits that I passed along to my son.”
Patrick Mahomes Jr. Grew Up Shagging Flies From A-Rod and Derek Jeter
“I started taking Patrick to the ball field when he was 4 years old and dressing him out and letting him shag balls and be around the guys in the clubhouse,” Mahomes Sr. recalls. “He was a sponge. He just picked up on all the little things they did and how hard they worked.”
“He was able to be with A-Rod and meet Derek Jeter and be around guys of that nature who were on top of the game and he saw how hard they worked, and it was just something that always stuck with him,” he continued. “Being around those guys helped him when he decided to make football a career.”
“He puts in the hours of work off the field; he’s what they call a gym rat. Always studying film and trying to figure out ways to get better, and that transfers well to the NFL because you have so much studying and preparation you have to do each week before each game,” the proud father added.
Combining a disciplined intellectual approach to the game with his freakish athletic skills is the key to Patrick’s seamless transition to the NFL game and why the former Texas Tech star won a Super Bowl in his second season as a starter.
Pat Sr. says his son was always smart.
“He was a 4.0 student in college, he was gonna graduate by the end of his junior year. He’s always been studious. He has a photographic memory, so things always come easy for him,” Mahomes extolled. “His recall is second to none. I also feel that the idea of him playing multiple sports when he was younger really helped. If you watch him play, his baseball background has a lot to do with how he throws passes.”
Football provided Mahomes the athletic platform to become a superstar, but it was baseball that sparked Patrick’s love of sports, his competitive edge and continues to provide him with advantages on the football field.
“He throws passes sidearm and no-look and that’s all stuff he learned from playing shortstop in baseball. So he’s taken a little bit of that and added it to other parts of his football game and it’s not something that a lot of people have seen before. It’s going well right now, but the objective is to keep learning and keep doing great things out on the football field,” the quarterback’s father said.
MLB Star Alex Rodriguez and Latroy Hawkins Mentored Young Patrick Mahomes II
Other than the principles he instilled, Mahomes Sr. says Alex Rodriguez was a huge influence on Patrick and a guy who really spent a lot of time with him. Another big influence was former MLB pitcher Latroy Hawkins, who’s also Mahomes’ godfather. He really taught him a lot of stuff, showed him how to be professional.
“The first time he was out on the baseball field you could tell he was the best player out there even though he was the youngest player out there,” Mahomes Sr. recalls about his son’s early years. “He was catching balls off big-league bats, shagging balls in the outfield when he was 5 years old. He was a little more advanced than the other kids.”
Everybody thought Mahomes Jr. was going to play baseball and get drafted in the first round as an outfielder. In addition to his batting skills, his dad says, he threw 95 miles per hour off the mound. But his junior year, he got a chance to play quarterback for Whitehouse High School in Texas, “where Patrick was a three-sport athlete, just like me,” Pops said. “You know how contagious and crazy Texas football is.”
Mahomes Jr. had 4,619 passing yards, 50 passing touchdowns, about 1,000 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns as a senior and his baseball career was pretty much over.
“He was at a point,” Mahome Sr. said, “where I think he felt like he had learned everything he could about baseball and football, offered him some new learning things, really intrigued him and he fell in love with it.”
Legacy Of Mahomes Family: Shining Light On Diversity
So the story of the Mahomes family is still being written. Just as Patrick Jr. has transcended the game and has set a new standard for Black quarterbacks, his dad wasn’t quite the superstar but his presence was important for a league that didn’t even have 10 Black starting pitchers when he played.
This lack of representation is a major reason why Pat Mahomes Sr. shares his big league experience with MLB’s diversity initiatives. The past few summers, he was an instructor at MLB’s Hank Aaron Invitational camp in Vero Beach, Florida, dropping the same knowledge he shared with Patrick long ago, with talented players of color ages 12-18, many from underserved areas.
“I think we’re making great strides with developing pitchers and players of color. One of the most important things to me is giving back, and being a pro pitcher, I know how hard it is to get to that point,” he explained.
As far as the pitching situation, most guys of color are very athletic, and they see that and the speed and all the different skills we have, and they want to transfer us to other positions. So a lot of guys that are playing center field, left field, and shortstop could be pitchers, but they feel like they can get more out of them as position players,” he detailed.
As media focuses on Mahomes Sr’s latest mishaps, the advice and guidance Patrick Sr. has offered his son is undeniably valuable:
“I always tell [Patrick Jr.] before every game how proud I am of him and remind him of what my dad Johnny Mahomes used to tell me: ‘You’ll always be successful if you perform to the limits of your ability.’”
That’s something Mahomes Jr. must do in Super Bowl 58 against a strong San Francisco 49ers squad. It’s hard to bet against the quarterback, and I wouldn’t bet against his dad in this game of life.
