Through his first three seasons in the NFL, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has quickly emerged as arguably the best player at his position in the league. Mahomes is coming off winning his first Super Bowl, which also made him the youngest player to win both the regular-season MVP award and Super Bowl MVP honors. However, before he had a chance to reach any of that glory in the NFL, former MLB star Alex Rodriguez had previously told Mahomes that he had no future playing the game of football.

Patrick Mahomes’ baseball career

Before he pushed his way on his path toward a football career, Mahomes had grown up with a strong passing for the game of baseball. His father is a former MLB pitcher that played for several teams over his 11-year career.

That significantly influenced Mahomes to play baseball as he worked his way toward being a top prospect, but wasn’t expected to be taken in the 2014 MLB draft due to his commitment to Texas Tech. He wound up being selected in the 37th round by the Detroit Tigers but didn’t sign with the team.

During his first two years at Texas Tech, he split time between football and baseball as he was a relief pitcher in the latter. In his sophomore year, he played in just three games for the baseball team, where he had no hits in two at-bats and gave up three runs as a pitcher.

He ended his pursuit at a baseball career before the 2016 college football season, where he held down the starting quarterback spot that year and became the 10th overall selection in the 2017 NFL Draft by the Chiefs.

Alex Rodriguez’s advice to Patrick Mahomes

Before Mahomes ventured on his journey toward playing in the NFL, he was viewed as a highly-touted baseball prospect.

That was something that former MLB great Alex Rodriguez noticed of his former Texas Rangers’ teammate’s son early on. It led to Rodriguez to once voice to Mahomes that he didn’t have a future playing football. (H/T Harry West of Sporting News)

“I said, ‘Now listen to me, if you don’t hear one thing that I ever tell you, you better listen to this. There is no money, there is no future, there is no history in football. You have to play baseball!’ “Well, he reminded me of that recently and, boy, am I glad he did not listen to me!”

Rodriguez also stated that he believed Mahomes reminded him a bit of New York Yankees star outfielder Aaron Judge with his size and power. However, Mahomes went against the former All-Star infielder’s advice to pursue a football career to where he’s now arguably the best player in the game after just three seasons in the league.

There is no guessing where Mahomes would be now had he chosen to stick with baseball. Still, his decision to stick with football has put him in a promising position to potentially put together a Hall of Fame-caliber career with much success ahead.

Patrick Mahomes’ bright NFL future

The 24-year-old is coming off quite an impressive first three years in the NFL with the Chiefs that saw him came the 2019 season off with guiding the franchise to their first Super Bowl win in five decades.

Mahomes has become the driving force of the Chiefs while he’s nearing proving Rodriguez yet again as he could become the first NFL player to exceed $200 million on his next deal. He reached stardom in such a short span in his career that he could set the table for him to continue to add to that for years to come.

His decision to stick with football has paid off and prove the doubters, such as Rodriguez, completely wrong.