Cesar Nicolas
By Tony Lane, Originally appeared in The Flagship

When Cesar Nicolas, Sr. finally watched his youngest son and namesake play college baseball for the first time, he had the best seat in the house. Junior belted a home run for him that day, just like Hollywood would have scripted it.

The son will never forget the euphoria that reached to his soul after that blast. The father, well, we can never know what he felt, but we can surely guess. For Cesar Nicolas, Sr., proud papa of Vanderbilt's junior first baseman, watches Junior not from the grandstands of Charles Hawkins Field, but from the lofty recesses of heaven.

Nicolas, Sr. died after a long struggle with kidney disease on Feb. 25, 2002. The day his son returned from the funeral in Miami, Fla., Vanderbilt beat Connecticut 11-5, sparked by Junior's final tribute - or was it his first? - to his father.

"One of the last things he told me was how he wanted so much to watch me play in a college baseball game," said Nicolas. "But he told me if I don't get that chance, don't worry, because I'll watch every game from heaven. To me, [the home run] was special because I felt like it was the first time he was watching me play."

Nicolas has a penchant for the dramatic - his three-run walk-off home run, on his mother's birthday no less, won Vanderbilt's first game in Hawkins Field. Now the challenge is to make the penchant consistent. Head coach Tim Corbin tabs Nicolas as a run-producer in the Commodores' otherwise scratch-hit lineup.

So far, he is succeeding. Nicolas leads Vanderbilt with a .380 batting average and a .535 slugging percentage through March 16. He has hit two home runs and five doubles while driving in nine runs and striking out just five times in 71 at-bats.

Nicolas' hardest hit, however, was the one he took to the noggin in the batting cages in a January practice. As he slid between hitting stations in the cramped confines underneath Vanderbilt Stadium's grandstands, Nicolas caught the backswing of Gil Kim right in the head. The frightening accident sidelined Nicolas with a skull fracture and concussion for almost a month.

"From what it looked like he was doing, it didn't look like he was going to swing," recalled Nicolas. "It looked like he was in between swings.

"I got really close, and he didn't know I was behind him. The next thing I knew, it was all too quick and I couldn't get out of the way.

"It was a freak accident. That's all I can say of it. It was one of those crazy things. I wouldn't blame myself, I wouldn't blame [Kim]."

Not surprisingly for a guy who ranked second in the SEC last season with 13 hit-by-pitches, Nicolas' recovery on the baseball field was smoother than the one in real life. The blow messed with his balance so much that he wasn't walking on his own for a week after the injury. His mother, Modesta, provided post-op care in those tough days, a bonus for Nicolas because she hadn't been up from Miami since his freshman year.

"I had more trouble recovering with everyday things than I did with baseball stuff," said Nicolas. "It was a good two weeks before I was on my feet, totally doing everything on my own."

Would Nicolas be able to look at a fastball the same way again? "I thought about that, how I might be - that I might be a little timid, tentative, but once I finally did it in a scrimmage, everything went well," he said.

Corbin wondered about his bounce-back, too, but his worries were unfounded. "He wasn't full strength, but he was aggressive," Corbin observed. "I remember the first day I threw him BP in the cages, I told him after he left it was like he never left. The swing just kind of flowed a little bit."

As if a preseason concussion wasn't enough, Nicolas also changed positions on the infield, going around the horn from third to first. Again, the 6-4, 225-pounder embraced the transition easily, drawing upon his shortstop experience as a utility infielder during his freshman year at Vandy.

"I've got all the footwork down, as far as playing one of the tougher positions [shortstop] on the infield. So I feel like the move to first base wasn't really that hard. I feel like it's allowed me to concentrate on my hitting more as well. You have less to worry about at first, as opposed to third or short."

Corbin moved Nicolas as part of a chain reaction that inserted Ryan Klosterman at short and Tony Mansolino at third.

"He's an athlete, can throw, can move his feet pretty well for a big kid. I thought that was gonna be a big advantage for us - a big target over there," said Corbin.

Cesar's older brother, Jose, recently received an invite to the Anaheim Angels' spring training camp after spending last season playing in the Independent League. Jose, a five-tool outfielder, is the best prospect in the Nicolas family, but not the only one. Cesar's still developing physically, one-half of the reason why Corbin calls him the Gentle Giant.

"I spoke to his brother the other day and he said when [Cesar] was a sophomore in high school, he thought there was no way he was ever going to play college baseball," said Corbin. "I think he's a late bloomer and I still think his best baseball is ahead of him."

And Cesar Nicolas, Sr. will be there to see it all.