Super Bowl 2024: How QBs Patrick Mahomes, Brock Purdy share baseball lineage as a common bond

There's a baseball connection to the Super Bowl, possibly a little deeper than you might think

This is a Major League Baseball page, yes, but the Super Bowl bleeds into all sports, right? It is the marquee event on a general sports calendar for the year. There is a baseball connection in the Super Bowl (Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+) this season, too. 

Surely, with this being the fourth year out of the last six with the Kansas City Chiefs making the big game, you've heard that Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has big-league bloodlines. That is, his father, Pat Mahomes, played Major League Baseball. As a pitcher, the elder Mahomes spent parts of 11 seasons in the majors, appearing for the Twins, Mets, Red Sox, Pirates, Rangers and Cubs. This has been covered, though, so let's move on. Because ... 

It isn't just the Mahomes family. This storyline extends to the other signal-caller. It would have been the case no matter which team won the NFC, actually. 

Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff's father, Jerry Goff, was a three-time MLB draftee. He was taken twice out of JuCo (Marin) and then selected in the third round out of Cal (Berkeley). The left-handed swinging catcher would appear in 90 games in the majors in parts of six seasons for the Expos, Pirates and Astros (Grid players, remember these). There's a dubious trivia question hidden in here, too, as Goff is tied for the MLB record after having allowed six passed balls in a single game (May 12, 1996). He also went 2 for 4 with a home run and two RBI in the game. 

Alas, the Lions did not hold their big lead in the NFC Championship game, so we don't get Mahomes vs. Goff. 

The San Francisco 49ers did complete the comeback, though, and there's still a baseball element. Quarterback Brock Purdy's father, Shawn Purdy, played college baseball for one of the most storied programs, the University of Miami Hurricanes. That would be the four-time national champion Hurricanes, who have been to the College World Series 25 times. 

Purdy, a right-handed pitcher, was actually drafted four times. He was taken in the 46th and 44th rounds, respectively, while he was in JuCo and then the 26th and 16th rounds after his junior and senior years at Miami, respectively. After that 16th-round selection by the Angels, Purdy headed to Low-A Boise as a starter. He was 8-4 with a 3.01 ERA that season and earned a trip to High-A Palm Springs the following season, which he'd go 13-8 with a 4.13 ERA in 26 starts. 

Purdy would reach Double-A in 1994 and Triple-A by 1997. In 1998 for Triple-A Richmond, he posted a 1.83 ERA and 1.02 WHIP with 20 strikeouts in 34 1/3 innings. And that was it. He fell one step short of Major League Baseball. 

His son, however, is about to play in the biggest sporting event there is. It's a fair trade. Also, the baseball background did shape the life of Brock Purdy. Shawn, a native of Florida, married Carrie from California. The two had fallen in love with Arizona during spring training over the years, and they decided that's where they'd settle once Shawn was done with baseball. 

"Spring training sucked us in every time," Carrie Purdy said in The Athletic in 2019. "He wasn't going to California, and I wasn't going to Florida. This was our compromise. And we love it."  

So this means baseball shaped the Super Bowl? 

Yes. Yes, it does. We're going with that.