SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Nick Gonzales made quite the effort to achieve fame.
After a rousing high school career at Cienega in Vail, Ariz., he wanted to move on to a Division I college, but when he failed to hear anything worthwhile, he made some contacts and one included a chance on perhaps getting a commitment from a place he’d never set forth in, a DI school in Las Cruces, that being New Mexico State University.
But when he made contact with Aggies’ Athletic Director Mario Moccia, he ran his resume pass him, Moccia was impressed, but informed Gonzales he had just given out his last athletic scholarship, so Gonzales asked if he can walk on. No problem, Moccia answered, and the rest is history that made Gonzales the Pittsburgh Pirates’ seventh pick in Wednesday’s opening round of the college baseball draft.
At NMSU, Gonzales was so impressive his freshmen season, Moccia and head baseball coach Mike Kirby got him a half-scholarship, and following his sophomore year, it became a full scholarship. Not only that, he handily became the program’s best player, maybe even the best in all the years it put a team on the field.
Consider this, Gonzales batted .412 his freshmen campaign. He had played second base most of the time at Cienega, but when Kirby’s starting shortstop was graduating, it didn’t long for the easy-going, talented Gonzales to inform the coach he would step right in. He remained the shortstop and a 3-year Western Athletic Conference first-team player, having hit .397 his sophomore season, and honored with a place in on the All-America team when he came out for the draft after his junior year.
There was talk that he could be an early pick in the first round, and when his name was announced by the Pirates, he was overwhelming overjoyed.
“Unreal,” he said, “just unreal. I show up at a school for the first time and fit right in. I will forever be grateful to the Aggies, my teammates, my coaches, the athletic department, and the fans. Let’s say, I lucked out and found my way to the major leagues.”
He sure did, batting a Division I best .432 batting average, a Division I best 16 home runs, and batting in a Division I best 80 runs. This followed after his stellar Most Valuable Player college summer league playing for Cape Cod and hitting .351. And just to prove it didn’t matter that the league used wooden bats, it also mattered little that he was asked to play either second base or shortstop, and was one of the league’s best defensive players. He stole bases, provided leadership and played every inning of every game.
He batted .412 his first season in Las Cruces and was named to the WAC first team, he was chosen the conference’s Freshman of the Year. His sophomore year he did the same, making the all-WAC team and many All-America lists by hitting .438. In a doubleheader against Purdue-Fort Worth, he belted five home runs at the start of his junior year. When the 2020 college season shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, he was batting .448 with a dozen home runs and knocking across 36 runs in only 16 games.
In his remarkable stay at NMSU, he clouted 37 home runs, drove home 152 RBI in 128 starts, and included an 82-game streak of reaching base safely.
Even Alex Bregman was happy to see Gonzales chosen. Bregman, out of Albuquerque Academy, was taken third overall by the Houston Astros in the 2015 college draft. But Gonzales became the all-time second best pick among New Mexico players by surpassing last year’s teammate, Joey Ortiz, who was taken in the fourth round.
Said Bregman, the Houston Astros’ starting third basemen, an All-Star and World Series MVP via the Albuquerque Journal: “This was great to see because I always try to watch the draft and when Nick’s name was announced, it made my day.”
It also became the biggest highlight for walk-on Gonzales.
