OH WHERE OR WHERE HAS HECTOR GARANZUAY GONE?

By Juan Montoya

You remember him as an outstanding second-baseman and shortstop with the Pace High School Vikings.

But unlike many outstanding athletes over the years, Héctor Javier Garanzuay Rodríguez has gone onto live the dream many would-be Major League players can only fantasize about. He is playing major league baseball in Mexico with the Acereros de Monclova. Over the last eight years, he has played semi-pro and pro baseball with a  number of teams in the U.S. and in Mexico.

And, thanks to a sympathetic fellow athlete Brownsville City Manager Charlie Cabler, Hecotr was able to get a six-month leave of absence form his position as an animal control officer.

So if you see more stray dogs running around the city, don't blame his immediate supervisors who didn't want to be shorthanded by and denied him the leave. 

Garanzuay, now 32, is a southpaw who throws and bats left and after Pace, attended and played for Texas A&M in Corpus Chrisiti and later for UT Brownsville (1999-2002). From there he transferred to Texas A&M and hit .379 in 2003, 7th among NCAA Division I Independents and ahead of Ryan Braun and Gaby Sanchez.

Undrafted, he signed with the Edinburg Roadrunners and hit very respectable .290/.358/.358 in 2004 while playing shortstop. In 2005, Garanzuay batted .302/.391/.433 for his hometown Monclova Steelers, with more walks (45) than strikeouts (38). Héctor split 2006 between the Coastal Bend Aviators .176/.232/.176 in 14 G) and Monclova (.331/.408/.497, 12 HR).
Garanzuay fell to .293/.357/.416 with 28 doubles for the 2007 Steelers. He played for Mexico in the 2007 Baseball World Cup, hitting .375/.394/.438 while mostly being used at DH in their 6-4 win over the host Taiwan National Team in the 7th/8th place game.
In 2008, Garanzuay hit .277/.357/.397 with 13 steals in 18 tries for Monclova. He hit .318/.375/.508 with 23 doubles after 62 games in 2009.

After eight seasons, his batting average stands at a respectable .287.

It's no wonder Cabler, who dabbles in fastpitch softball along with aging wonder player Pete Avila his sidekick, would let Hector take a six-month breather in Monclova to make a few extra bucks and continue to dream of playing in the majors.  But does this mean that the city is going to the dogs while Hector is in his field of dreams?