CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Ruben Castro is sitting in the Nueces County Jail on a $1 million bond in the stabbing death of former Banquete baseball star Anthony Gomez.
Gomez pitched for the Bulldogs and was on the mound back in the 2016 Regional Final at Cabiness Field. He got the last batter out to send the Bulldogs to the state tournament. His teammates poured onto the field and piled high on top of their pitching ace and all around good guy.
"He was, and I think all the kids in that team would tell you this, the glue," Gomez's former coach Rusty Miller said. "Anthony was the one. We had a lot of great players in that team, we had a lot of kids who contributed and did a lot of great things, but when it was all said and done Anthony was the one."
Miller was Anthony’s coach from 2013 to 2016. He is now in charge of the Robstown 'Cotton Pickers.'
He says Anthony was so good at pitching that he ended up getting a college scholarship to play baseball at Incarnate Word College.
"We don’t keep all time stats at Banquete but there’s no way anyone has pitching strikeouts than Anthony had. He averaged 2.1 strikeouts per inning in four years,” Miller said.
One of Anthony’s teammates and best friends through school was Jake Mijares, and he says his friend was simply the best.
"He was such a hard worker; I mean you didn’t have to ask Anthony to do anything extra because he was already doing it on his own," Mijares said. "There was a few times when his dad would hit him ground balls after practice and everybody would kind of watch and be like man that’s, that’s a leader right there.”
Miller also remembers Gomez always wearing a Superman shirt under his uniform to honor his little brother who had battled some health problems.
"As I was sitting there thinking about him last night I was like, you know, he used to call his little brother that but when it came to Banquete baseball, Anthony was our Superman,” he said.