Don’t expect Baker Mayfield to be wearing pinstripes anytime soon.
The free-agent quarterback, who spent last season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, took some swings in the batting cage with the New York Yankees before their spring training game against the Detroit Tigers.
Mayfield showed some good warning track power, lining a few balls to the outfield at George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.
“I’m a little rusty, as you could tell,” Mayfield told the YES Network. “It’s awesome getting to meet some of these guys. I’m a big baseball fan, so meeting some of these guys in person and watching them up close in batting practice, it’s special.”
“I’ll say this: it’s always fun to talk about the opposite sports, and the dreams we had of playing the other sports,” Mayfield said. “Their hand-eye coordination is truly elite. I couldn’t track some of these balls coming in that fast.”
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Mayfield looked back on his 2023 season, in which he completed his passes for 4,044 yards with 28 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, leading the Buccaneers to the NFC South title and a wild-card upset over the Philadelphia Eagles.
‘It was an unbelievable year,” Mayfield said. “Truly, the group we had is what made it really special. It started out decent and we had a really bad lull there in midyear, but the group we had stuck together, so that’s what made it really special. Obviously, winning cures a lot of things.”