AVILA ROSARY TODAY: BOMBERO, CONSTABLE, BALL PLAYER

By Juan Montoya

For more than 30 years my friend Pete answered the call from his fellow Brownsville rsidents – and sometimes even as far as Los Fresnos and even Matamoros – to protect them from fire and flood.

When some unlucky soul drowned trying to cross the river, it was probably Pete and his fellow firefighters who were there to answer the call and pull them from the muddy waters.

Pete answered the final fire call from his God July 24, less than a month before celebrating his 62 years of marriage to his lifelong mate Elvira who he met in high school and carried a romance that gave life to his children Richard, Peter (Lupita), Lorraine, Leonel (Nelda), Danny (Letty) and Albert (Melissa).

The boys followed in the footsteps of their dad and proudly wore the uniform of public servants as firefighters.

And his 11 grandchildren: Monica, Richard, Lynelle, Leon, Daniel, Danielle, Ayla, Molly, Timothy, Sarah, and Jacob; 5 great-grandchildren: Hailey, Mylah, Noah, Emmett, and Tuli were never far from his heart.

He will also be missed by 2 sisters and 2 brothers. And he is now in the company of his late parents Natalia Lopez Avila and Pedro Avila Sr., and also a brother, Victoriano Avila, the former principal of Victoria Heights Elementary.

After more than six decades of playing baseball, fast-pitch softball and coaching kids in the intricacies of the game, Pete was inducted into the Rusk Athletic Club Latin American Fast-Pitch Softball Hall of Fame in 2008. He loved the game and played until his body called time out.

He joined only three other players from Brownsville who have received such an honor. They were Felix Buentello (2000), Alex Anzaldua Sr. (2004) and Jesus Perez (2012).

Like all baseballers, Pete liked to regale his listeners with tales of the past games won and hard losses to bear, and his eyes lit up with obvious pleasure to be talking about a game he loved.

I remember him talking about one of his most memorable games, a loss by only one run that dragged on for 17 innings before it was decided. Anzaldua pitched that game.

At one point, as the game dragged on into the later innings, a player from Matamoros playing with Brownsville named "Chava" miraculously hit a double and was at second when an umpire saw the coach give him the signal to steal third.

He then warned Chava that it was getting late and he wanted to go home to his wife and dinner and if Chava tried to steal third he was going to all him out. I guess sometimes a man has to have some priorities.

I remember Pete laughed when he heard that the Houston Astros had been stripped of the 2017 World Series championship and had fired their coach for stealing signs between the catcher and pitcher of the opposing team.

The Astros also fired manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow after the scandal broke.

As usual, Pete had a different take on things and would have done something entirely different.

"They ought to be given trophies or a raise for thinking about how to make it possible for their team to win," he said. "Sign stealing has been a part of the game ever since I can remember."

Avila says that in all the games that he has played one coach would keep an eye on the other coach in the dugout as he signaled plays to his team.

"If they had a man on first or second and the other coach gave the signal for him to steal, the other coach would catch the sign and warn the pitcher and infield about the impending steal," he recalled. "Then the pitcher would throw a pitch out so that the catcher would have a chance to get the runner. It was part of the game."

But even knowing what the pitcher was throwing – like "El Indo" Lopez who threw the knuckler 90 percent of the time – did not guarantee a hit.

"We knew what he was going to pitch," Pete recalled. "In those days we used to call the knuckleball – or change up – "La Chencha" in Spanish and everyone would be yelling at the batter 'Cuidado con la Chencha, Cuidado con la Chencha' and El Indio would still strike them out."

On a personal note – and meaning no disrespect for our brother firefighters and first responders – sometimes those long periods of waiting at the firehouse until an emergency comes up lend itself to idle gossip. And Pete, like many of us, le encantaba la platica, the spicier the better. He actually Pete gave me the idea of naming my news blog El Rrun-Rrun. He would sidle up to me and ask: A que no sabes lo que dice el rrunrrun?

At first I thought it was just a term of border slang, or Spanglish, or even un pochismo. Well, guess what, the La Real Academia Española tells us that it is an infinitive verb similar to the purring of a cat, ronronear, or a purring of a car motor, the murmur of the people, what people are talking about. How did he know that?

I’m going to miss my friend Pete and can only imagine the sadness his family and grand kids must feel. I offer them our condolences from our family to his. With him gone, we have lost a lifetime of experience and commitment to his community. We celebrate a life well lived and pray that like us, they will cherish the good moments spent with him as we will.

There was nothing Pete loved more than putting on some cleats and a baseball cap and pound his glove with his hand and run out into the diamond to join his friends in a pickup game in some baseball field. I prefer to think that he just stole second and he will be waiting for us at home plate when we make that final turn.

Goodbye, my friend y vaya con Dios.

Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. today, July 29, 2021, in the East Chapel at Darling-Mouser with the recitation of the holy rosary scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on Thursday evening. The Funeral Mass is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on Friday, July 30, 2021, at St. Luke’s Catholic Church, 2800 Rockwell Drive.

Committal services will follow at Buena Vista Burial Park. The Brownsville Fire Dept. will serve as Pete’s pallbearers and render Last Call honors at the graveside.