By Brendan Cross
After losing a large chunk of his 2019 season because of a diving play at first base gone awry, senior catcher Johnny Mendoza is hopeful he can stay on the field this year and help lead the Spartans to a Mountain West Conference championship.
“It sucked,” Mendoza said. “Especially at a point where we were doing really good. We were, like, really hot.”
The San Jose State baseball team was atop the Mountain West at 8-4 when Mendoza went down during a non-conference weekend series against Northwestern University.
“You can only control what you can control . . . I could have controlled the way it happened, by me not diving into first, but you’re playing the game so fast and things happen,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza returned later in the season, playing sporadically as a designated hitter and pinch hitter, but the injury bug had continued to bite several other of his teammates, leaving a potential conference title out of the question for the team.
Not putting on the catcher’s gear since late March was an oddity for the Mountain View native, who has been behind the plate since he was 8 or 9 years old.
In his youth league, he rotated positions, moving from shortstop to pitcher but eventually found a niche as a catcher.
His coach at the time told him that no one typically likes to play catcher, but Mendoza did not complain when his coach assigned him the position.
“He taught me to enjoy it and ever since, I think, I was 10, I’ve enjoyed it,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza then continued playing at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View. During his junior year at Saint Francis, his best varsity season, Mendoza batted .299, driving in 21 runs in 31 games played.
He also only committed two combined errors during both of his varsity seasons.
Saint Francis was a baseball powerhouse at the time, ranked No. 9 in the country and No. 2 in the state during his junior season.
“They treat it like a college program and it’s going to get you ready for the next level and it has,” Mendoza said. “They tend to get guys to the Division I level . . . So that’s why I think I went there, just because the competitiveness there was really good.”
Despite putting up good numbers both at the plate and behind it, Mendoza was not highly recruited out of high school.
Many of his teammates were being recruited to schools such as Stanford, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Berkeley, but Mendoza did not have any commitments going into his senior year of high school.
“I talked to [the University of San Diego] and [California State University, Long Beach], but they
. . . After a while, they just stopped talking to me,” Mendoza said.
When he heard that some of his teammates were getting recruited by large schools and he wasn’t getting many calls, he thought that maybe he wasn’t good enough, he said.
Mendoza also said he felt that his height played a factor in his lack of recruiting interest.
“I was [5 feet, 7 inches tall] and still am. And for a catcher it’s not very ideal at the next level,” he said. “I think they looked at that like ‘Oh, I don’t think he can do the DI level.’ ”
Mendoza did not let his height stop him, however.
“That just kind of pushed me more, just to prove that, you know, it’s not all about height,” he said.
Mendoza’s connection to Saint Francis high school helped him eventually get a spot on the roster at SJSU.
Jason Hawkins, who was SJSU head coach in 2017, knew an assistant coach on the Saint Francis staff and asked if he knew a local catcher.
Mendoza got a call and visited the campus. He wasn’t promised any scholarship money and he would have needed to be a walk-on, but Mendoza was on board.
“I’m happy that I made the decision and that I’m here, especially as a walk-on. I think that it’s pretty cool,” Mendoza said. “At the end of the day, when you’re on the field, they don’t look at how much money one person is getting for scholarship. No one’s looking at that stuff.”
While Hawkins is no longer the head coach, current manager Brad Sanfilippo said he appreciates the leadership that Mendoza brings to his game.
“He’s a level-headed, even-keeled, calm leader,” Sanfilippo said. “He’s definitely someone that everyone can look to and see somebody that has produced at this level and produced very successfully for us in a position that is really really demanding.”
Mendoza got his feet wet as a freshman, starting 13 of the team’s 55 games, hitting .277 in the process.
He took over the reigns of the starting catcher job during his sophomore season and hit .288 for the year, but his defense is the aspect of his game that gives him the most pride.
“I think I take pride in my defense because you’re involved in basically every single pitch that’s thrown,” Mendoza said. “I was taught in high school that ‘if you can play defense, I’ll put you in the lineup somewhere, your hitting will come.’ But I feel like teaching defense is a hard thing to do.”
In his sophomore season, Mendoza threw out a Mountain West conference-leading 20 would-be base stealers.
Coming into this season, Mendoza is still continuing to work on his defense, in particular, his passed ball rate. The three catchers on the roster allowed a combined 17 passed balls last season.
A passed ball is a pitch that a catcher should be able to catch but misses, allowing any runners on base to advance.
“I’m working hard and the other catchers are working hard so that we can limit those to less than five as a staff of catchers,” Mendoza said.
As one of only five seniors on the 40-man roster, Mendoza said he is making sure to hold his teammates accountable for what they have to do to succeed.
“My goal is to try to be a good leader for them. I’m not a vocal leader where I’m yelling at people or telling them to do this and that,” Mendoza said. “[I] show by example and lead by example.”
Senior infielder Troy Viola said Mendoza is soft spoken, but when he speaks, you want to listen.
“He doesn’t talk a lot, but when he does, you know that he has something to say and that it’s going to improve your game or obviously bring us together as a team,” Viola said. “It’s going to be information that’s necessary for the team.”
After he graduates, Mendoza said he hopes to continue his baseball career professionally. But, if that does not work out, the sociology major will look toward a career in law enforcement.
“I’m in the works of doing that now, applying for [the] San Jose Police Department,” Mendoza said. “I like helping other people in the community out, making sure they’re good . . . And that they feel safe.”
