Mahomes and Purdy became Super Bowl quarterbacks by playing baseball

Rival Super Bowl quarterbacks Brock Purdy and Patrick Mahomes have almost nothing in common – but both are so good at throwing a football because of their time playing baseball.

Quarterbacks Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers, left, and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs. Pictures: Christian Petersen and Jamie Squire/Getty Images North America/AFP

Brock Purdy’s high-school baseball coach knew that he wouldn’t be playing shortstop for long. Something about his lightning-quick release and his ability to throw from almost any position just made him a natural fit for something else entirely.

“We’ve got to put him behind the plate,” Damien Tippett used to say. “He might be our best catcher.”

Tippett was right about Purdy trying a different role. He was just wrong about the sport. The same release and mobility that might have made Purdy a brilliant catcher also helped turn him into the star quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers. Now, the former shortstop has gone from being the last pick in the NFL draft to the guy hoping to outgun Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl.

When Sunday’s game between the 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs kicks off, it will be apparent to even the most casual football fan that Mahomes and Purdy share almost nothing in common.

Mahomes relies on his creative wizardry to conjure breathtaking plays out of thin air. Purdy thrives within the rigid confines of the 49ers’ finely tuned offensive machine.

But the two men who will play a bigger role than anyone else in deciding the Super Bowl can thank the same surprising chapter of their histories for helping them get there. Mahomes and Purdy are so good at throwing a football because of their time playing baseball.

In an age when young athletes increasingly focus on a single sport, Mahomes and Purdy are a loud rebuttal to why early specialisation may be the exact wrong idea. They’re the sons of former professional pitchers and went on to become shortstops. Only later did both of them decide that football was their true calling.

But both quarterbacks still credit baseball with honing the skills they now use on the gridiron, and it will be easy to spot the effect in Sunday’s Super Bowl. The quick release Purdy uses to beat the pass rush once helped him nail runners across the diamond. When Mahomes slings a ball to tight end Travis Kelce in traffic, his former coach feels as if he’s watching his high school shortstop throw out a baserunner.

“It’s crazy,” says Derrick Jenkins, who coached Mahomes at Whitehouse High School in Texas. “Everything you see are just things you’d see on a baseball field every day.”

Of the two quarterbacks, Mahomes was the more accomplished baseball player. One of the first times people around him understood that he had an incredibly strong arm was when he once hurled a ball so hard across the infield that it drilled his first baseman between the eyes and broke his glasses. The team’s temporary solution, to protect the safety of his teammates, would be sacrilege to baseball lifers: they moved Mahomes, the player with the strongest arm, to first base.

That didn’t last long. By high school, Mahomes was playing short, pitching and dabbling in the outfield. And while the most storied part of his time at Whitehouse was a 16-strikeout no-hitter he threw against current White Sox fireballer Michael Kopech, those who watched him play saw him sharpen his freewheeling quarterback style more when he was fielding grounders. It didn’t matter whether his feet were set or which way his momentum carried him. He had an uncanny ability to throw a perfect strike across the infield every time.

Brock Purdy and Patrick Mahomes during Super Bowl LVIII Opening Night at Allegiant Stadium on February 5. Picture: Candice Ward/Getty Images

“Those off-platform throws, the throwing across his body,” says Pat Mahomes Sr, who spent 11 seasons pitching in Major League Baseball, “those are all the moves that he made as a shortstop when he never really had his feet up under him.”

It wasn’t just the movement or the arm strength, it was also Mahomes’ strange knack for throwing the ball only as hard as necessary. On close plays, he could dial up the heat out of necessity. But other times, he would take some zip off knowing he’d beat the runner by half a step. It’s no different than his skill he deploys these days when he rifles a pass into a receiver’s chest or floats it over his shoulder.

Mahomes was so gifted that he was drafted by the Detroit Tigers out of high school, but elected to attend Texas Tech instead. And even then, he wasn’t quite ready to give up baseball. Mahomes spent two springs on the team before eventually committing to football full-time. To this day, Mahomes brings up the huge role baseball played in his development – and has even worn his dad’s old New York Mets uniform.

Purdy’s father, Shawn, never got as far as Mahomes Sr. But he did spend eight seasons pitching in the minors, where he reached triple-A and even played for a San Francisco pro sports team decades before his son. Shawn Purdy had three years in the Giants’ farm system, playing alongside the likes of future major leaguers Rich Aurilia and Keith Foulke.

His son turned into a pretty good ballplayer, too. Brock pitched on top of playing nearly every infield position. spending time at middle infield and third base. And while Purdy isn’t famous for being acrobatic like Mahomes, the baseball clues are there. When he drops his elbow to fling a screen pass to running back Christian McCaffrey, it’s no different from fielding a grounder.

“The arm angles, having a base as a thrower – all that kind of stuff, definitely helped me to be where I’m at now, especially with quick game and throwing around defensive ends,” Purdy said last year. “That’s definitely a credit to baseball.”

Purdy turned his full-time attention to football after his sophomore year of high school. But even in two seasons of working with him, his coach could see that Purdy’s intelligence on the field would set him apart, no matter which sport he played. That much has been clear to him ever since Purdy walked into his dugout.

Fans of the 49ers learned it a little later – when he transformed from Mr. Irrelevant into their franchise quarterback.

“The only thing I taught the kid,” Tippett says, “was how to read a bunt at third base.”

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