Lest there be any doubt, Patrick Mahomes is all in on Kansas City.
Last week, the Chiefs quarterback seemed to defend the city’s legendary barbecue against an allegation that St. Louis has a superior product (spoiler: It does NOT). And earlier this month he pledged the next decade-plus to living in the city by signing a big, fat contract. Now he has become a part owner of the Kansas City Royals. Not bad for a 24-year-old guy who has been an NFL and Super Bowl MVP as well as an NFL champion and just signed a contract extension that can be worth a half-billion dollars over 12 years.
“I’m honored to become a part owner of the Kansas City Royals,” he said in a statement released by the Chiefs. “I love this city and the people of this great town. This opportunity allows me to deepen my roots in this community, which is something I’m excited to do.”
Mahomes joins the Royals’ Hall of Famer George Brett in the owners’ suite and is the latest athlete with ownership aspirations. Among those who’ve bought into teams are Aaron Rodgers, Derek Jeter, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, LeBron James and Magic Johnson.
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Mahomes’s love of baseball comes naturally. His father, Patrick Mahomes Sr., played in the majors and no doubt takes some satisfaction at the newest part of his son’s portfolio. The elder Mahomes was 0-4 record with an 8.45 ERA against the Royals.
The younger Mahomes never wanted to specialize as a kid. As an athlete at Whitehouse High outside Tyler, Tex., he liked to say that his favorite sport was whatever was in season. A starting point guard as a freshman, he dreamed of playing for Duke. A pitcher and shortstop, he ended up being a 37th-round draft pick by the Detroit Tigers in 2015. He wasn’t a starting quarterback until early in his sophomore year, after playing defensive back as a freshman.
At Super Bowl LIV, he said he was “a baseball player that was playing football” in high school and credited his success to his experience across multiple sports.
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“Just the competitiveness that you have to have,” Mahomes said. “The way you have to find different ways to win, in whatever sport it is, that helped mold me to be the quarterback that I am.”
The goal for him, as Bobby Stroupe, who has trained him since fourth grade, told The Post’s Adam Kilgore, “to kind of be the MacGyver of football.”
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