At one point or another during their playing career, an athlete will face adversity. It’s inevitable.
For Bourne Braves first baseman Garrett Michel (Virginia Tech), that dose of hardship came on March 1 of this past spring.
During the seventh inning of a 6-3 Hokies win over Stony Brook, Michel collided with Evan Goforth as he was running to first base and instantly dropped to the ground, visibly in duress. At the moment, nobody truly understood the severity of his wrist injury but assumed the worst, as did Michel.
“It was just a lot of pain,” Michel said. “I knew it right away. I’ve never broken a bone seriously until now, but it sounded like it was right in my ear… I just tried to get off the field as quickly as I could. I knew being on the field, rolling around or whatever, wasn’t going to do much. So I got off the field and let the boys finish up the game.”
He found himself in somewhat uncharted waters — he’d experienced the occasional tweak throughout his playing career but had never broken a bone up to that point. But he knew the injury he’d just sustained, if nothing else, was bad.
Predictably, the injury affected far more than just him. Shortstop Clay Grady, who is in the same class as Michel and lived with him this past year, was on the field when the injury occurred. He immediately dropped to his knees, grappling with shock and uncertainty while struggling to make sense of what had just transpired before his eyes.
“There was a lot going through my head at that time,” Grady, now on the Braves with Michel, said. “That’s not just a teammate, it’s my best friend going down. At the time I didn’t know what it would look like and how long he’d be out… That’s pretty tough, not just losing one of our better players on the team, but a best friend, having to see him go through that.”
The promise Michel displayed during his abbreviated 2024 campaign only added salt to the wound. In nine games, he went 14-for-35 (.400 average) with nine extra-base hits, four of which were long balls. This torrid start followed a monster freshman season that earned him Freshman All-American honors from multiple outlets and a spot on the 2023 ACC All-Freshman Team.
Michel was certainly living up to the lofty expectations placed on him entering his second spring with the Hokies. But in an instant, none of those stats or accolades mattered.
Six days after his initial injury, Virginia Tech announced he underwent successful surgery on his wrist but would miss the remaining 45 games of the season. And so began his journey towards returning to the diamond and picking up where he left off in March — one that ended up being abbreviated.
“It was definitely a long road to recovery,” Michel said. “But I ended up being two weeks quicker than I should have been… I was very motivated to try and get back on the field during the Virginia Tech season, to help our team get back to where they need to be. It didn’t happen, the timing wasn’t right, but I’m definitely happy to just be ahead of schedule with the recovery part of it and able to play here.”
When Braves field manager Scott Landers first learned of Michel’s injury, he was faced with a difficult decision to make.
The easy option would have been to cut ties right then and there. Who knew if there would be hiccups in the recovery process — which generally takes about three months for a broken wrist — and whether Michel would prove effective after missing over 12 weeks of action and hurting a body part essential to hitting?
Landers was willing to take a chance on Michel, though. Not due to his play, but because of the impression he made during his first summer in Bourne.
“We just played it by ear,” Landers said. “Just being him, I felt like I owed it to him to give him the opportunity. Whether it was right off the bat or somewhere in the middle, I wanted him out there because he’s a good person to coach.”
Michel more than proved that much in 2023.
Ranked inside Perfect Game’s USA’s Top 500 Incoming Freshman in 2023, he arrived at Doran Park with a stellar freshman season in his back pocket. In 51 games, he slashed .339/.465/.626 along with 16 doubles, 11 home runs and 45 RBI. Michel’s 66 strikeouts on the year were the most glaring blemish to his game, but his offensive upside and 37 walks drawn easily overshadowed that.
Despite enduring a slow start to the summer, he eventually picked up steam, finishing with a .227 average, four regular-season home runs and 16 RBI. He carried a six-game hitting streak into the postseason, where he mashed three more home runs — tied for the league lead in that category — en route to helping the Braves to their second straight CCBL Championship.
But it was more than simply his play that made him an appealing prospect to Landers. It was his character and being a model teammate, which he displayed this past spring at school.
Being sidelined for the rest of the 2024 season didn’t stop Michel from continuing support for his group. Once he completed his surgery, you’d be hard-pressed not to find him in the Hokies’ dugout, offering teammates pointers for their at-bats and, of course, bringing his trademark positive mindset.
“[Michel’s] a great guy outside of baseball,” Grady said. “He’s a great player, which obviously helps in the field, but having a guy [like] him that’s always energetic, always happy, same guy every day, really helps you be a better player. [It] keeps your mind right if you’re having a bad day — you look at guys like that and you think ‘let’s try to figure out a way to be in a better mood.’”
His reputation as a high-energy personality also followed him onto the Cape in 2023. Like at Virginia Tech, Michel was regarded as a stellar teammate who always brought positivity to Bourne’s dugout. He didn’t just make an impact on his peers, as he formed a bond with Braves batboy Cooper Karas, providing him with lifelong memories.
That experience left a lasting impact on Michel, too, who was eager to make a return to Bourne for the 2024 campaign and jumped at the opportunity Landers afforded him.
“I can’t thank him enough,” Michel said. “I communicated with him a lot during our school ball season about how I was feeling and when I thought I was going to get back. I’ve seen a bunch of times where people just release guys because they’re hurt. So I owe a lot of things to him for allowing me to come back up here.”
Back In Full Swing
In the top of the second inning of Bourne’s July 10 matchup at the Brewster Whitecaps, Michel walked up to the plate for his first at-bat of the day.
Up to that point, he was hitting at a .143 clip with 16 strikeouts through 14 games, a frustrating start to the 2024 campaign. Things would take a turn for the better in short order.
After whiffing on the first two offerings from Whitecaps starter Seth Tomczak, Michel battled back and took three balls to work a 3-2 count. He then unloaded a curveball down and away, lining a solo blast 364 feet into left field for his first home run of the summer.
“I think I blacked out,” Michel said following the 9-4 win. “It was my first [home run] since being back from the injury. It was kind of bittersweet, it was nice to run around the bases and have that trot again. It was fun.”
The long ball only scratched the surface for Michel, who finished the day a triple shy of the cycle and safely reached base in all five of his plate appearances, going 4-for-4 with a walk. But such a performance meant more than merely ending a slump — it was the culmination of months of work to get to that point.
The Road Back
Even being ahead of schedule, Michel’s road to recovery had its fair share of bumps. While he had high motivation to suit up for Virginia Tech at some point during the spring, such a return didn’t come to fruition.
When he initially began baseball activities again, several routine plays or drills caused pain or discomfort. For the first time in his career, Michel, who wanted to give it his all during every rep, couldn’t. That predictably brought him great frustration.
“I’ve never truly played this game and had to worry or be conservative about an injury, day-to-day, and trying to be smart about how much I’m doing,” Michel said. “It was kind of frustrating, not being able to go in there and do 100%, I’m always used to doing in practice.”
Instead, he slowly but surely worked his way back. It wasn’t only the physical aspect of the recovery that challenged him, though — at times, his rehab took a mental toll on him. Fortunately, he had support systems like his teammates, coaches, and family who were always willing to talk and help him with whatever he may have been going through.
Of course, Michel proved his own biggest support system throughout his recovery. He channeled the discouragement he felt at times and used it to further motivate him, helping him quickly return to the field. In the back of his mind, he always knew he wanted to return to Bourne for the summer, even though he would face college baseball’s very best after missing two months of games.
It was a considerable challenge, albeit one Michel welcomed.
“I think I told myself and my family right away that I wanted to go back to the Cape,” Michel said. “My coaches brought up the idea of starting somewhere else and moving here after I got my feet back underneath me. But I told them, I said,‘I’d rather be challenging myself every day with the best pitching and best teams than go into a different league and it not being the same as it is here.’”
He recognized that he’d likely fail at first. But he knew that failure would ultimately help him in the end.
“He started off slow,” Landers said. “But it’s getting live at-bats and getting that swing back and confidence in his wrist to where he can produce. Now he’s starting to swing that bat better, and he just comes to grind every single day.”
Above all else, that Wednesday evening at Stony Brook Field confirmed to Michel that he could return to the form he had in early March. His confidence skyrocketed.
Starting with his mammoth outing on July 10, he’s gone 6-for-18 (.333) at the plate with two RBI and six walks to five strikeouts. It’s a small sample size but indicates he’s heating up at the right time, as Bourne is in the midst of a playoff race, currently 2.5 games up on the Falmouth Commodores for the Cape Cod West Division’s last postseason berth.
Regardless of what transpires in the Braves’ final 11 contests, this season will hold a special meaning to Michel. It provided him the opportunity to return to the diamond and find his game again in a setting that holds a special place in his heart, something he will always remember and appreciate.
“I just want to leave everything out there,” Michel said. “This is kind of like my school season except for nine games. So for me, it’s kind of treating this like my school season and giving it everything I’ve got every single day… I played opening night, it was my first game back, I left it all out there. Every game, I’m not taking it for granted, playing as hard as I can and just enjoying playing the game again.”
