Spring Stars: Gerardo Grijalva will spend offseason tinkering before diving into baseball, robotics

The Star is profiling Southern Arizona high school athletes whose seasons were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. Each high school was asked to nominate an exceptional spring sport athlete who exemplifies greatness on and off the field, court or track.

Gerardo Grijalva is feeling lucky these days for a host of reasons, one of those being that he still has the opportunity to paint the black for Sunnyside’s varsity baseball team for one final season.

Grijalva, 17, was having a fantastic season before its cancellation, according to Sunnyside’s athletic director. And according to Grijalva himself, school and baseball are basically his whole life.

“School is the one thing that’s going to get me to my dreams,” he said.

Grijalva first picked up a baseball when he was 4 years old, rising the ranks in Little League, high school and club baseball over the past decade-plus.

“It was a good start,” Grijalva said of the Blue Devils’ season. “I missed the chance to improve the team’s win-loss record this year and just getting more experiences.”

Fortunately, there will be more experiences for Grijalva, who just finished up his junior year. Still, it’ll be hard to top one of his very first experiences at Sunnyside.

“I feel like my favorite memory from high school so far is my freshman year, when I got the call that I had made the varsity team,” Grijalva said.

Grijalva is an “awesome kid,” according to his Sunnyside coach, Gabe Moraga, who went on to call him a gentle giant.

“He is one of the better pitchers I have had at Sunnyside. He has great command of all of his pitches and throws pretty hard, as well,” Moraga said. “He has worked hard at getting his body in shape, and I know with his work ethic, he is only going to get better — and that is a scary thought.”

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With the baseball season cut short, Grijalva has spent the past few months in a holding pattern, trying to stay busy and prepare himself for an anticipated summer season with his club team, The Show.

“I’ve been running around the neighborhood, or going to the park with my dad,” Grijalva said, adding that when it was possible, he met up with his catcher for some bullpen time.

While Grijalva would love to play college in baseball after he graduates, preferably at the University of Arizona or UCLA, he’s also focused on his future career as a robotic engineer.

“I heard that robotic engineering has a lot of math in it, and most people don’t like math, but that’s one of my best subjects in school,” Grijalva said. “Right now, I really don’t have an idea of where I might go, but I for sure know that I really want to play baseball in college at the next level.”

Moraga said he’s excited to see what the young pitcher can do during his final high school season.

“Hopefully he can live out his dream of getting drafted and making it in the big leagues,” Moraga said.

But right now, after more than two months under quarantine, Moraga’s dreams are a little simpler.

“I just want to go play baseball, go to the fields and go practice,” Grijalva said. “Have a real good practice and have a good season.”