PHOENIX – Before he was the 2025-26 Gatorade Arizona Baseball Player of the Year, Alain Gomez-Gudiño spent his 16th birthday in a train station in Mexico.
Gomez-Gudiño and his family were nearing the culmination of a months-long journey that began in Venezuela, just waiting on a CBP One permit to officially enter the United States.
“We just stayed waiting, we didn’t know what we can do to spend the time so we were just waiting all day for the permit,” he said. “Two weeks before I got the permit I started to play baseball, like Sunday league.”
Gomez-Gudiño resumed playing baseball with one of the few things he carried with him from Venezuela, his catcher’s mitt, its leather soaked with river water from each of the eight countries he traversed to reach the United States.
Now retired from use, that glove serves as a reflection of what Gomez-Gudiño has overcome. It symbolizes more than a journey. It represents defying odds and conquering fears in pursuit of a new life.
At first, he never wanted to move.
“My first thought was, I don’t want to leave my home, I don’t want to come here because I don’t know nothing, it’s a new life, new friends, new house,” he said. “I left my family over there, my dad, my grandparents, so it was a little bit hard the first time.”
Baseball origins
Gomez-Gudiño started playing baseball at 3 years old, idolizing Venezuelan legends like Victor Martinez, Bobby Abreu and as a catcher himself, “obviously” Salvador Perez.
“I literally grew up playing baseball every day in Venezuela, since I wake up to when I go to bed, baseball, baseball, baseball,” he said.
He fell in love with the sport traveling with his family to play in Little League tournaments and it never wavered as he got older and started playing for academies. Around that time, Gomez-Gudiño started switch-hitting, just like V-Mart.
“I’m naturally right-handed, so I started to hit lefty like a year before I came here,” he said. “I started to switch hit ‘cause I can see the pitches better, the pitches come to me and it’s easier to hit, so I switch it up for that reason.”
Compared to Venezuela, Gomez-Gudiño had no idea how different baseball would be in the United States. He had to take a leap of faith.
“Just thinking about my family, my sister, you know? I realized, ‘OK, we’ll probably get a better life over there, so we gotta go,’” he said.
And off they went.
The winding road
“We actually traveled through eight countries,” his mother, Lislen Gudiño, said. “We left Venezuela and went through Colombia, traversing the jungle. Still in the jungle, we reached the border to Panama.”
That jungle connecting Colombia to Panama is known as the Darién Gap, 60 miles of terrain so rugged that it is the only part of the 19,000 mile Pan-American Highway unpassable by vehicle. The rainforest is extremely dangerous for a number of reasons, one of which Gomez-Gudiño found out in a nightmarish way.
“When we passed through the jungle, I almost lost my mom,” he said.
“That day it was raining, so everything got wet and it was hard to walk. We passed next to the river and she fell. She almost gave to the river and I just grabbed her and got her up.”
Rivers in the Darién Gap can be waist-high with currents fast enough to sweep a person away, so it is reasonable to say Gomez-Gudiño saved his mother’s life that day.
After crossing the jungle, they made their way through the rest of the country.
“We spent three days walking downstream along the river bank until we made it out of Panama,” his mother said. “From there, we started traveling by bus through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala before we reached Mexico.”
Gomez-Gudiño returned to the diamond in Mexico and as they awaited entry to the United States, he could see the first signs of his family’s future.
“They paid me to play there for a little bit,” Gomez-Gudiño said. “With that money, we went right after the game to go get something to eat. That was a good time for me because, if my family was good, I’m good.”
By the end of November, they were in the U.S.
“That was our journey,” his mother said. “We left Venezuela on Aug. 6 and arrived here in the United States on Nov. 21, 2023.”
New opportunities
When his family settled in Arizona, Gomez-Gudiño still lacked knowledge of how the baseball scene operated, but that would soon change.
“I went to Saguaro because it was the closest high school, I don’t know how baseball goes here, I didn’t play baseball here,” he said. “Then I realized I can play for the school and I said, ‘OK, I’m going to try out for the baseball team.’”
As a new player to the program, he made an instant impression.
“I remember when he came to our first fall workout you could tell there was something different, just special,” former Saguaro coach Joe Muecke said. “Usually, you’re looking for role players. He was an impact guy.”
Gomez-Gudiño quickly became battery mates with one of the top high school pitchers in the country.
“Literally two weeks after I started playing, I heard from Cam Caminiti that he’s a top prospect. I noticed him pitching after my second practice before the season, he started to throw a bullpen and I said, ‘Oh, this guy throws hard, I know why he’s a top prospect,’ and I started to catch him.”
The two were a perfect match.
“It’s talent meeting talent, you watch this synergy happening literally from the word ‘go,’” Muecke said. “The way he approached the craft of catching, it was easy for Cam to recognize that he was not just the best catcher in our program, but a premier talent in general.”
After watching the duo on the field, Gomez-Gudiño’s family began to understand as well.
“He was playing on the varsity team alongside Cam Caminiti and we started seeing scouts and universities take interest,” his mother said. “That’s when we realized what baseball is really like in the United States, something very different from Venezuela.”
Gomez-Gudiño took advantage of these opportunities to play in front of scouts.
“I knew they were coming for him but also I knew, ‘I gotta do my best and they can see me, too,’ and that’s what I did. After that, I got a lot of calls from schools, scouts, and that means a lot to me.”
Gomez-Gudiño quickly became a top prospect in his own right when he and Caminiti led Saguaro to a state championship that season. Caminiti was named Gatorade Arizona Baseball Player of the Year that season, punching out 11 batters in the title game, but Muecke remembers more than just the stellar pitching performance.
“There were two or three plays I vividly remember in the state championship game,” he said. “It was a bunt play, and Alain’s calling off Cam and makes a great play. It was literally a major league style catching pop out and throw out a guy that not many guys are gonna make.
“And to call off a first rounder who’s throwing a gem in the state championship game, it’s just the little things.”
Shortly thereafter, Gomez-Gudiño started taking recruiting visits, another previously unfamiliar aspect of baseball in America.
“That was a new thing for me and my family because we never do that in Venezuela, go to the school, meet new people, meet their coaches, go to a football game,” he said. “I’ve never been to a football game before I started my recruiting thing, so it’s fun for me and for my family.”
When his senior season came around in 2026, Gomez-Gudiño was determined to put his name next to his former teammate.
“We have a wall in the gym (at Saguaro) that shows the Gatorade players of the year, every sport and season. Before the season I said, ‘I have to be there after the season,’ and I made it.”
He made it after winning his second state championship in three years at Saguaro, batting .455 over the season with six home runs and 35 RBI while throwing out one-third of opposing base-stealers.
More than an athlete
Gomez-Gudiño is a five-tool player on and off the field.
He not only maintained a 3.47 GPA at Saguaro but also involved himself in the local community. Gomez-Gudiño frequently volunteers at Miracle League, an organization that provides individuals with special needs the opportunity to play baseball.
“It’s great moments with those kids,” he said. “I had a lot of fellas spend time with those guys, just have fun, help people do their things, help everybody. I have a lot of fun with them and it means a lot to me.”
Helping others is part of his personality.
“He has a very noble heart, anyone who gets to know and talk to him will realize what kind of person he truly is,” his mother said. “I’m hoping that his career allows him to continue helping more people, he wants to do those things his whole life.
“He truly enjoys helping everyone in his reach regardless of who asks him, whether it’s a person with a disability or a foundation, he is always willing to help all kinds of people.”
Gomez-Gudiño’s selflessness is clear to anyone he meets.
“You can see him always with a smile on his face, always wanting to help people out and that’s just him as a person,” said Canyon del Oro alumnus Francisco Rivero, a fellow Venezuelan catcher and one of Gomez-Gudiño’s closest friends. “He brings that out as a teammate. He’s always trying to pick you up, he has amazing leadership, he cares about others more than himself.”
Gomez-Gudiño participated in the MLB Draft Combine, but before the draft reaffirmed his commitment to the University of South Carolina. The switch-hitting catcher is excited to begin SEC life.
“I landed on South Carolina because it has a really good campus, it’s not a big town, I like the fans over there and, obviously, the baseball is really good too,” he said. “(I’m excited to) improve myself as a person, as a baseball player every day to get more experience at that level. It’s baseball, it’s nothing I haven’t done so I just try to do my best, have fun and be who I am.”
It always boils down to one thing.
“The first thing I always say before I go to practice or I go to the baseball game is just have fun,” Gomez-Gudiño said. “This is the sport, have fun there, always smile. I always get a smile on my face, talk to my teammates, talk to everybody. I just try to have fun.”
When Lislen Gudiño thinks about her son, she overflows with pride.
“Honestly, it doesn’t fit in my chest everything he has accomplished to this day,” she said. “I still can’t believe it.”
She hopes his story will be one to show future ballplayers that they can dream big.
“Someday when people learn the story of how he got here, not just the journey of crossing seven or eight countries, but his path in baseball starting when he was 3 and leading up to this moment, they will really understand everything he has fought for to get here.”
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