He doesn't wear a pocket protector nor collect comic books, but the word on the street is one of the Central Coast Section's biggest baseball stars -- Los Gatos pitcher/infielder Hunter Bigge -- is a nerd.
"He's kind of a geek," said Bigge's father, Matt. "He likes school and he can solve a Rubik's Cube faster than any baseball player you've ever met, like in about two minutes."
Turns out Bigge (pronounced Bigg-ie) is a quick study in just about everything. He excels in two sports, especially in baseball where he has an 8-1 record on the mound with a 0.75 earned run average. He is also hitting .421 with two home runs and 21 runs batted in. In the fall he'll likely be Los Gatos' starting quarterback.
But he's also a natural in the classroom with a 4.3 grade point average who is currently taking three advanced placement classes and one honors class. His day includes classes in engineering, trigonometry, computer science and physics.
"I have to manage my time pretty well," the 16-year-old said. "I have some AP tests coming up so it's hard, but it's not that bad."
Bigge's intelligence doesn't hurt between the lines, either. He's very much the thinking man's ballplayer.
"I love the mental side of it," said the 5-foot-11, 190-pound junior. "I like pitching because it's like a chess game with the hitter. It's also a game where you don't have to be super physically gifted. Any average guy can excel and that's what's amazing about baseball."
Bigge typically likes to work quickly, as shown by his 3-0 victory last Wednesday against visiting Wilcox. The game took just 75 minutes, with Bigge allowing two hits, striking out four and walking one.
"That was quick," Wilcox coach Dave Currie told Prep2Prep after the game. "(Bigge) gets the ball quick and has good tempo. He works fast and the catcher gets the ball back to him quick. I like their intensity; I think they all kind of feed off of that."
Something is working for Los Gatos (22-2 overall, 10-2 league). The Wildcats are tied with Wilcox for the SCVAL-De Anza lead and have won 17 of their last 18 games.
"Hunter is the most competitive player I've ever coached," Los Gatos coach Nate Anderson said. "He makes working hard fun in a variety of ways. He can be sarcastic and he's likable and he has a high motor and is high energy."
Asked to explain, Anderson said: "He's all over the map. He does handstands in front of the dugout the day he pitches -- maybe for shoulder flexibility or stability, I have no idea. You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him."
Though Bigge is not 6-5, 235 pounds like San Francisco Giants' ace Madison Bumgarner, colleges like what they see so far. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and St. Mary's have offered him scholarships and Brown, Harvard, UCLA and Stanford have all shown interest.
"The fact he's such a good athlete and so bright throws open a lot of doors for him," Anderson said.
Bigge has been playing baseball since he was 5 or 6, first in Saratoga where his family moved after leaving Florida, then in Los Gatos.
His dad, Matt, played prep football in Florida and his mom, Heidi, was a star prep swimmer in New York and at a college in Canada.
According to family lore, there may also have been a great-great grandfather who had a "cup of coffee" with the New York Yankees.
"Ever since Hunter was in Little League, he's been hooked," Matt Bigge said. "We had the key to the Little League batting cage and he'd be there all day. Now we have one in the backyard and it gets a lot of use."
Of course, there's also the young man's other talent, solving a Rubik's Cube in the blink of an eye. Though impressive in a geeky sort of way, it's not likely to open any doors for the Los Gatos star.
"When I was a kid the Rubik's Cube first came out and there were contests," Matt said. "There was a TV show called 'That's Incredible' and you could make money. But in today's world I don't think Hunter will be leveraging that into a college scholarship."
