DAVE FAVILA | Staff Writer
As the baseball slams into the catcher’s mitt with that oh-so-familiar thump, Danny Gidora shouts to the young man on the pitcher’s mound.
“Good. That’s real good,” he says. “Keep your arm tucked in and make sure you rotate your hips.”
It’s just shortly after 10 a.m. but it’s July in the Rio Grande Valley so naturally it’s already sweltering and the sun is baking the dusty, rain-parched lot the small group is practicing on.
“Remember, the best way to throw hard is to try and not throw hard,” Gidora tells another young man who is now on the mound. “Focus! Relax! Trust what you know.”
Gidora, 26, is in his element. It doesn’t matter that it’s hot or that the field he’s currently on is a far cry from some of the baseball diamonds he once played on. It doesn’t matter because he’s doing what he loves to do. Baseball is in his blood. It did, after all, play a major role in his life. And while his playing days now seem to be behind him, it doesn’t matter because he gave it his all and now he’s ready to move forward.
DANNY GIDORA: THE PAST
It wasn’t too long ago that Gidora was the talk of the town as the starting pitcher for the Harlingen South Hawks baseball team.
He wasn’t the type of pitcher that lit up the radar guns. He just somehow simply outthought and outworked his opponents. A changeup here combined with an unconventional pitch on a particular count there. He just always found a way to keep hitters off balance and fool them into swinging for a strike.
Although he was a four-year varsity starter for the Hawks, Gidora’s best season undoubtedly came during his senior season in 2007 when his arm helped lead the Hawks to the UIL state baseball finals against Houston Cypress Fairbanks.
And while the Hawks unfortunately fell short in the title game, Gidora pitched brilliantly that season going 38-6 on the mound. He was especially good in the state semifinals against Midland Lee when he overcame an early 2-0 deficit to pitch a four-hit complete-game performance that the Hawks won 4-2.
After graduation, Gidora decided to play college ball at Howard Junior College in Big Spring.
“I was there for one year, I worked my way up to a third-man starter and then I decided to come back home,” he said. “There were some deaths in the family and I was actually trying to go to (UT) Pan-Am but things just didn’t work out with them and I was kind of left with no where to go. But that’s when UT-Brownsville called me up and I went over there for three years.”
Gidora actually thrived at UTB, becoming an NAIA second-team All-America selection his senior season before leaving to try his luck with the Haysville Aviators of the Kansas Jayhawks League, which is a summer collegiate league.
After that, Gidora found his way back to Harlingen and eventually became a member of the now-defunct Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings.
“I gave the whole Wings thing a try and I tried to continue my baseball dream but unfortunately the money wasn’t very good and the bills catch up with you, and really that’s about it,” he said. “I had a little bit of a shoulder problem but other than that, that’s pretty much how my career went.”
DANNY GIDORA: THE PRESENT
While his baseball career wasn’t exactly what he had once hoped for, Gidora firmly believes that he learned enough along the way to become a very capable instructor.
And that’s why he spends nearly every day out on this dusty field with a group of about 10 kids who have decided to put their baseball futures in his hands as part of his nascent pitching instruction class.
“My focus now is to give back all the secrets that I discovered to increase my level of play, mature my mindset and ultimately get into college. That was my biggest goal and I think that I have those three things and I know enough people, I know enough information and know enough workouts to produce a very high-caliber player,” he said.
Alec Atkinson, an eighth-grader at Coakley Middle School in Harlingen, is one player who believes in Gidora’s system. After all, Gidora’s instructions were good enough for his older bother, Jacob, who recently signed a letter of intent to play college ball at the University of Houston-Victoria.
“I’ve actually been working with Danny ever since I was 9 years old,” said Alec, who one day hopes to follow in Gidora’s and his brother’s footsteps by playing baseball for Harlingen South.
“He really helped my brother and he’s really shown me a lot. He’s taught me how to take care of my arm, both physically and though proper pitching. My goal is to one day pitch in college and I know he can help me get there.”
Michael Noyola, a 17-year-old soon-to-be senior at Harlingen High, has also put his faith in Gidora and even after just two sessions said he’s been pleased with the results.
“He’s already shown me a lot more stuff than I knew coming in,” Noyola said. “He’s taught me to stay down after I follow through on my pitch and other things. I really hope to play well during my senior season this school year and I think he (Gidora) can really help me do that.”
Finally, Jose Gonzales, a 15-year-old sophomore at San Benito High School who has been working with Gidora about four weeks, said he would rank Gidora a 9 on a scale of 10.
“He’s corrected me on a lot of things,” Gonzales said. “He’s taught me how not to collapse my leg in order to get more power on the pitch and to rotate my hips and get over on my front leg. He’s good and he knows what he’s doing.”
DANNY GIDORA: THE FUTURE
Right now, the undeveloped field Gidora’s instructions are held on is directly behind Harlingen High’s KEYS Academy baseball facility. In order for participants to get to the field they have to navigate an unpaved, bumpy dirt path that actually has a “Dead End” sign posted at the end of it. Just when it looks like the path will fall off into an irrigation canal, it suddenly veers to the right and runs parallel to the canal for a few feet before the field finally comes into view.
It’s humble beginnings but Gidora hopes that through hard work and perseverance all that will change soon.
Gidora is currently back in college at UT-RGV, working on getting his degree and trying to get his instructional training off the ground. He charges about $25 per session but says he is very flexible at this point.
“Considering where we are at right now, I’m open to what I will charge and I’ll work things out with whoever is interested,” he said.
And while he dreams of one day opening his own baseball academy complete with a traveling team, Gidora is keeping his options open, including the possibility of one day returning to his alma mater to coach.
“It’s definitely lingering in my mind and something I would consider,” Gidora said about coaching at Harlingen South. “But right now I’m trying to reach a greater base of players. My goal right now is not to just help one program get better, but to help players from the entire Valley get more competitive.
“Ultimately, I would love to have my own place where I could train kids and get together a team that could travel to different places and play baseball, but that takes money and I’m not at that point just yet,” he said. “It takes time and I’m working from the ground up, but I know I can get there. I know I will get there.”
Check out Danny Gidora’s pitching instruction Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/gidora.pitching