It wasn't supposed to be like this for Mike Mitchell. Before he played a single game in aVirginia uniform, his rookie coach raved about the ground No. 8 would cover in the outfield, the havoc he would wreak on the base paths. Mitchell and current closer Casey Lambert were going to be the anchors of Brian O'Connor's first freshman class.
Instead, Mitchell hasn't played in over a year, save for pinch running duties.
He seemed invincible back then. To him, the letters "DL" had never meant anything other than keeping something secret. Nine games into his college career, the horizon looked bright -- as the everyday starter in center, he had hit safely in eight of those nine contests and had stolen seven bases.
"I had gotten off to a great start," Mitchell said. "I was hitting the ball even better than I did in high school."
All that changed March 2 of last year when Mitchell ran full steam into the center field fence in a game at Richmond.
The initial prognosis was a cut eyelid and a shredded gum, but worse news was yet to come.
The face had healed, but Mike knew something was wrong. Every swing was torture -- the pain just wouldn't go away. After playing through it for five games, the x-rays came in: broken scaphoid. Of all the bones in your wrist to break, the scaphoid comes closest to resembling a dog with Attention Deficit Disorder -- you just can't get it to heal.
In his best Majestic Mapp impersonation, Mitchell's first surgery failed to do the trick. It took a bone graft last October to get the blood flowing well enough to kick-start the healing process.
"I was kind of heartbroken, having such a great year," Mitchell said of his initial disappointment. "But it's healing now. It's getting back."
Then there's Josh Darby, Mitchell's former partner-in-crime of Humphreys 211. Talking to him for five minutes, you quickly realize that Darby is optimism personified
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