Johnathan Taylor was the type of hitter who fouled off pitch after pitch, then beat out a dribbler to the shortstop. Georgia Tech pitcher Mark Pope loathed the sight of Taylor coming to bat.
Said Pope, "He's the biggest pain in the world to pitch to."
Pope and other Tech players, though, know Taylor as more than a scrappy center fielder for Georgia, the one who was paralyzed in an outfield collision March 6. Through school and summer baseball, they know Taylor as a former teammate who on road trips woke up ready to go while everyone else was stumbling out of bed. Taylor was not just a tough out, but someone with a team-first attitude, jubilant dance moves and earnest friendship.
Said Pope, "He's really one of the nicest guys in the world."
Tech will play Georgia on Tuesday night at Turner Field for the final time this season. To a Tech baseball staffer who knows Taylor well and has visited him several times at the Shepherd Center, where he is rehabilitating, his injury has cast the rivalry in a different shade.
"I don't know if you'd say low-key, but more of a friendly game," Nick Scherer, Tech's director of baseball operations, said. "You definitely don't want to lose, [but] I think it's definitely a little different."
Like Pope, Scherer knows Taylor through the East Cobb Baseball program. Pope and Taylor grew up in it and were variously teammates and opponents, along with many other Tech and Georgia players. Scherer is an East Cobb assistant coach and once had Taylor on his team.
Said Scherer, "You beg for [players] to have his personality and his mentality for the game."
Taylor is improving incrementally. During a visit last week, Scherer said Taylor told him that he thought he could move his thumb a little bit.
"A little better each day and just hoping for, I guess, a minor miracle," Georgia coach David Perno said.
Scherer visits Taylor every Wednesday and sometimes more. Scherer's wife Lauren has acted as a liaison between Taylor's family and Tech players and parents, who have made visits and donated restaurant gift cards. Pope has made multiple trips to the Shepherd Center, sometimes bringing teammates.
"He'll give me the inside scoop on some of our friends at UGA," Pope said. "I'm always interested in that."
When Scherer visits, he and Taylor usually talk baseball or about his rehabilitation. But they have not been above giving each other a hard time about the other side. Scherer has a little more ammunition, with Tech having beaten Georgia the first two games this season.
It might surprise the most ardent Bulldog (or perhaps Yellow Jacket) fan to know that a Tech jersey signed by the team hangs over a window in Taylor's room. Scherer believes counterparts at Georgia would respond in the same way if the situation were reversed, a notion Perno confirmed.
"It's not Georgia-Georgia Tech, it's a family," Scherer said. "It's a baseball family when it comes down to something like that."
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