Johnathan Taylor Introduced with Other Georgia Draftees

On a day where the Atlanta Braves and the Texas Rangers were focused on interleague play, three young men were in the bowels of Turner Field at an interoduction ceremony, looking forward to their futures in baseball. Two will report somewhere in the Ranger’s farm system while one will report to rehab.

University of Georgia outfielder Zach Cone and Richmond Hill High School pitcher Kevin Matthews signed with the Rangers earlier this week and will begin play soon. Georgia outfielder, a alumnus, Johnathan Taylor is confined to a wheel chair and has been told that he might not walk again.

During as March 6 game against Florida State, Taylor and Cone collided in the outfield chasing a fly ball. Cone was injured, but made it back to play later in the season. Taylor has been in a wheel chair ever since the incident, partially paralyzed from two fractured vertebrae in his neck.

All three players are Georgia natives, which made the Saturday game between the Rangers and Braves a perfect place to introduce them as new members of the Rangers family.

Matthews, from a high school outside Savannah, Ga., was selected with the 33^rd pick in the draft. He’ll report to the Arizona Rookie League after walking away from a spot with the Virginia Cavaliers. Cone, the 37^th-overall selection, will report to Single-A Spokane.

Taylor will continue his five-day-a-week, eight-hour-a-day rehabilitation schedule at the Shepherd Center. According to Taylor, each day he seems to show improvement, and that’s just fine for him right now.

"Right now I’m focused on getting better, on rehab, and getting my legs under me again," Taylor said. “I’m going to walk, then run. Then I’m going to get back on the field again."

Yes, knowing the odds of it ever happening, Taylor did say his eventual goal was to get back onto the field. But that’s the only time you’ll hear him talk long-term. Taylor is focused 'in the now', according to his mother Tandra Taylor.

“He doesn’t look way down the line, he’s dealing with right now,” said Tandra. “Now his focus is to get back up, and that’s what he’s working on.

“They (the Rangers) made his dream come true. And they’re still going to make his dream come true down the line. But right now his thing is therapy, and getting better, and getting stronger.”

Taylor, who is a life-long Rangers fan, will return to the University of Georgia in the fall to continue his degree. He turned down the Rangers’ contract offer and Texas in turn donated what would have been Taylor’s signing bonus to the university foundation that is supporting Taylor during his rehabilitation.

According to Taylor’s mother, the young outfielder has always had a chip on his shoulder of sorts. When people tell him he can’t do something, its makes him go after it much harder.

Taylor was determined to play Division I baseball, even though scouts and coaches throughout his high-school years told him he wasn’t tall enough, or big enough. That ordeal pushed him to work towards making it to the University of Georgia.

It’s that same tenacity that’s going to push him to get out of his wheel chair one day.

“He’s always had that, and it’s never stopped,” said Tandra. “He loved the game so much and he was so dedicated. He’s coming back. He’s definitely coming back. You can’t stop someone who is determined to do something, no matter what anyone says.”

For the time being, Taylor is focused on getting better and stronger, and getting back to school. He’ll forever be able to say that he was a 33^rd-round draft pick in the Major League Baseball Draft. But the important thing is to heal, and anyone who’s spent time with him knows that Taylor won’t rest until he can walk to the couch to sit down and take a load off.