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While Ivan Rodriguez is celebrated and inducted into the Rangers Hall of Fame at Rangers Ballpark on Saturday evening, taking his well-earned place as the Hall's 16th inductee, Juan Gonzalez, whose place is as deserved, will be home in Puerto Rico in a gated community just south of San Juan.
The Rangers don't know why Gonzalez, who was invited in June to be inducted along with Pudge, said "no" to the invitation. The organization couldn't even get him to answer the phone when it called to relay what it believed was good news.
Jose Guzman, who also grew up in Puerto Rico, was enlisted to try to reach his former teammate.
When Guzman got tired of waiting to hear Gonzalez's voice, he contacted Luis Mayoral, a Puerto Rican journalist, former Rangers employee and longtime Gonzalez confidant.
Mayoral, who lives in Midlothian, has long been the umbilical cord to Gonzalez. He remains close to Gonzalez's ex-wife, Jackie, who lives in Arlington, and their son J.J., a Seguin High graduate and now a 6-3, 275-pound defensive lineman at Tarleton State in Stephenville.
Mayoral thought it was a terrific idea for Gonzalez to be inducted alongside Rodriguez, a fellow Puerto Rican who spent the decade of the 1990s as Rangers teammates.
Gonzalez told Mayoral he wasn't interested.
Jackie, Gonzalez's high school sweetheart, who later became the second of his four wives, told her ex-husband how much J.J. might enjoy seeing his father inducted before an adoring crowd of Rangers fans.
Gonzalez told her he wasn't interested.
"The dude's got a mind of his own," Mayoral said with a shrug. "Over the years he has built up a wall on certain subjects. No one penetrates it."
Monster seasons
Juan Gonzalez had two terms of service with Texas.
As a 19-year-old, he joined the team as a September call-up in 1989. He returned again the following September.
He arrived for good in 1991. He hit 27 home runs and drove in 102 runs in 1992 to establish himself as a 21-year-old wunderkind in the outfield.
He hit 43 home runs the next season, the first of five 40-home run seasons with the Rangers.
In 1996, the Rangers finished first in the American League West and made their playoff debut. Gonzalez, the league MVP, hit 47 home runs, drove in 144 runs and batted .314.
When the Rangers again won the AL West in 1998, Gonzalez hit 45 home runs, drove in 157 runs, batted .318 and won his second league MVP award.
With one year left on his contract after the 1999 season, the Rangers traded Gonzalez to the Detroit Tigers for six young players. After an injury-plagued season that saw his value significantly decline, Gonzalez, a free agent, signed a one-year deal with the Cleveland Indians. He hit 35 home runs with 140 RBIs while batting a career-high .325.
He returned to the Rangers in 2002, signing a two-year contract for $24 million. Slowed by a torn ligament in his right thumb and an injured right calf, he played 152 games over two seasons. He hit 32 home runs and had 105 RBIs.
In June 2007, Rangers owner Tom Hicks in a television interview addressed Gonzalez's relatively lackluster second tour with the team.
"Juan Gonzalez for $24 million after he came off steroids, probably, we just gave that money away," Hicks said.
In 17 major league seasons, Gonzalez was never fined or suspended for steroid use. Like Rafael Palmeiro and Rodriguez, he was implicated by ex-teammate Jose Canseco for steroid use.
Gonzalez played his final two seasons - 2004 and 2005 - with the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Indians. He retired at age 35.
At a breakfast meeting in Cedar Hill last week, Mayoral, 67, pulled an index card from his portfolio with the original quote from Hicks, citing the date in The Dallas Morning News.
Mayoral said Hicks' words stung Gonzalez.
"My opinion and only my opinion," Mayoral said. "Juan was long gone from the Rangers. He has never told me this. He never would tell anybody. He felt his character was assassinated."
Putting up walls
When the committee met to determine whom the Rangers would honor with 2013 induction into the team's Hall of Fame, no objections were raised to Gonzalez or Rodriguez, a catcher who is destined for membership in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Hall members Eric Nadel and Tom Grieve, the general manager who signed a 16-year-old Gonzalez in 1986, were his most adamant supporters.
"Juan is among the most significant impact players in Rangers history," Nadel said this week. "He and Pudge Rodriguez along with Nolan Ryan."
"Pudge was charming and cooperative from Day 1," Nadel said. "Juan was shy and withdrawn. Pudge made an effort to speak English; Juan used language as a barrier."
"Juan shrank from the attention," Nadel said. "He doesn't like the spotlight. Maybe that is part of his reluctance with the Hall."
No regrets
For several years after his retirement, Gonzalez coached youth league baseball teams in Puerto Rico. On trips with junior national teams to Cuba, he would distribute equipment and talk to young players for hours.
Nadel said Cuba has become the second island on which Gonzalez is idolized.
Gonzalez is a member of the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame, which is located in the Dominican Republic as well as the baseball hall on his home island. He reluctantly went to the Latino induction ceremony, flying in at the last possible moment and returning home at the first opportunity. When he was inducted into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Houston, Mayoral and Gonzalez's son, J.J., represented the absent Juan.
Jackie Gonzalez, a passenger service representative for American Airlines, said her co-workers at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport were incredulous when word spread last month that Juan turned down a place in the Rangers Hall.
"I never asked him why so I can't tell them why," said Jackie, who met Juan through his father, who was her math teacher in high school. "Juan is the only person who knows why, and if he doesn't want to do something, no one can change his mind."
But Jackie is certain Juan will be in North Texas in September to watch J.J. - Juan Jr., the oldest of his three children - play.
"He wouldn't miss that for the world," she said.
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