One doctor said he was done with high school sports, but that doctor did not know Mitch Ratigan, who returned to the baseball field earlier this month

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

The Union Titans were in a jam.

Already trailing the Skyview Storm late in the game, there were two runners on base with two outs.

The Titans called time to make a pitching change.

It was Mitch Ratigan’s time.

For Mitch Ratigan, it was about time.

Interestingly, he was very much ahead of any traditional schedule.

Mitch Ratigan, by playing baseball this season at all, is way ahead of his time.

So there he was on the mound, taking his warm-up pitches, and periodically adjusting a large brace on his right knee.

Then it was time to play.

Ratigan struck out his opponent.

A perfect moment to end one journey and start another one.

“That is one of my favorite moments. Coming back, first play back as a Union Titan, and I get a strikeout? That was awesome,” Ratigan said.

Mitch Ratigan was back on the playing field for the Titans, five months after having major knee surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Ratigan was crushed when he first injured his right knee on the third play of the high school football season. 

But he was even more devastated after a too-brief meeting with the first surgeon he and his family talked to about the injury. Junior and his parents Mitch and Jennifer were told he was done with high school sports. A senior at Union, there was no way he could return to the playing field this school year.

See ya in the summer, they were told.

No, they said. There had to be a way.

A second opinion with another doctor led to some hope. An introduction was made to a third doctor, Dr. John “Jack” O’Shea from The Oregon Clinic.

O’Shea said there was a procedure available that would allow Junior the opportunity to cut the rehabilitation process to about half of the traditional time for an ACL surgery recovery. Not only that, but if Junior was willing to change his playing style, wear a brace, he could even return to the football field prior to having the surgery.

Junior and his parents were on board.

So there was Mitch Ratigan, with a torn ACL, taking snaps at quarterback for the Titans against Battle Ground on Oct. 12. The next week, he played against Camas. He reinjured the knee in that game, but he did not do any more significant damage.

A couple weeks later, Dr. O’Shea performed an opposite-side, bone-patellar graft surgery. He took a portion of the tendon of Junior’s left knee — the good knee — and built a graft in Junior’s right knee, the injured knee.

In traditional ACL surgeries, doctors will tell an athlete to expect to be out of action for eight to 12 months. With intense rehabilitation, a motivated patient who has the opposite-side, bone-patellar graft procedure can cut that down time in half.

It should be noted that Junior is not really a Junior. Mitch Ratigan the son has a different middle name than his father. Still, with dad being a teacher and an assistant football coach at Union, it is easier for all to just call the son Junior. 

Those around him also describe Junior as an extremely focused athlete, one with a motor that does not stop. He used to be a three-sport athlete, too, because he just cannot get enough competition.

That is one of the reasons his parents were so in favor of allowing Junior to return to the football field, even with an injured knee. It is why they wanted Junior to have the opportunity to rehab and be back in time for at least some of the high school baseball season in the spring.

“Truthfully, I was worried if he didn’t get to play, to have some closure his senior year,” Jennifer said, alluding to her son’s mental health. 

“You want to punish me in any way, you put me on the sideline,” Junior said. “The best way to torture me is to put me on the sideline.”

Now that he is back, Junior wants to thank all who helped him.

“My mom. My dad. The football coaches. Our trainer. My physical therapist. Dr. O’Shea,” he said.

Oh, and yes, that first surgeon. 

“I feel good that I kind of proved that other doctor wrong. ‘You told me I can’t do this? I’m going to do it.’ And I did. That is one of the greatest feelings ever,” Junior said.

To be fair, Dr. O’Shea said that the first surgeon was not wrong in his assessment that it would take so long for Junior to return. That is the normal time frame. A lot of surgeons are not experienced in the opposite-side procedure.

O’Shea learned from Dr. Donald Shelbourne, of the famed Shelbourne Knee Center in Indianapolis. 

“The opposite-side graft gives you an opportunity to return faster,” O’Shea said, noting that Dr. Shelbourne uses that procedure on 90 percent of his patients.

For O’Shea, he prefers to get to know the patient first. If the patient is not in a rush, he will do the traditional procedure.

Ratigan,though, is always in a hurry.

Not blessed with tremendous size, his speed and moves on the football field allowed Junior to stand out at quarterback. He was known for keeping a play alive, making something happen.

He was making a move on the third play of the season when something went wrong with his right knee.

“I felt a pop. I didn’t know what it was at first,” Junior said. “I got up and tried to walk. I couldn’t walk. I didn’t know what it was.”

Then the news hit him. It was a torn ACL. Then that first observation, that it would be closer to nine months. Junior was feeling the weight of the world.

But then there was that second opinion, and the introduction to Dr. O’Shea. 

Hope returned.

“He was like, ‘We can do this. You want to play right now? I will clear you to play,’” Junior recalled. 

There had to be a plan. Junior had to promise to limit his scrambling, become more of a drop-back passer. He had to work with Union trainer Mike LeFore, too. And the Union coaches had to feel comfortable with everything. 

In the end, it worked. Junior returned to the field on Oct. 12, six weeks after suffering the injury.

“I just wanted the opportunity to play my senior year, to play home games,” Junior said. “I just wanted to play a home game with Titan Nation.”

Junior’s entire high school athletic career has been quite an odyssey. 

His first year in high school started when school really wasn’t school — the fall of 2020 during the pandemic. Sports did not return until winter of 2021, when football, basketball, and baseball  were played back-to-back-to-back, with some overlap, in abbreviated seasons. Junior played varsity football, at quarterback, the final game of that season, then played JV basketball, and varsity baseball. There were times he left the baseball field to go to a basketball game.

His sophomore year, he was the backup quarterback but got his chance when the starter went down with an injury. Junior played well, but he, too, was hit by the injury bug, breaking his collarbone.

That December, the family moved to Arizona. Junior was cleared in time to play baseball at a high school there.

As a junior, he played football in Arizona, but in the winter he moved back to Clark County, to rejoin his teammates at Union, playing basketball and baseball with the Titans.

Then senior year lasted three plays of football … or so he thought.

He was cleared by Dr. O’Shea, even with the torn ACL. Parents, coaches, and the trainer agreed that Junior was ready to return. 

“We wanted to give him a shot to give the team, the school, a look at what could have been,” Junior’s dad said. “One shot, at home, in front of those fans that he loves, that we love. It was a no-brainer.”

Junior will never forget that football game against Battle Ground at McKenzie Stadium.

“Everyone was chanting ‘Rati’s back! Rati’s back!’ That was just an awesome experience.”

A few weeks later, he had the surgery. 

Nothing quite prepared the Ratigan family for Junior’s initial response. Because there was not much of a response at all. For three days, he could not lift either leg.

“I panicked a little bit,” Jennifer said.

“I was a little scared, not being able to move. I’m always active. I’m always out doing something,” Junior said. “I’m not a video game guy. Being trapped in a bed … that was the hardest part.”

All of a sudden, it clicked. Junior started moving his legs. 

“That was a relief. As soon as I did that, I turned on some Pitbull,” Junior said, getting pumped up through music.

He was in physical therapy within a week. 

Going the traditional route, it can take four to eight weeks for a knee to regain full range of motion. But doing the opposite-side surgery, a patient can go directly into the strengthening phase, O’Shea explained. 

Junior wasted no time, and he did not skip a beat in the recovery process.

“Let me say this about Mitch. He did everything that was asked of him and then some,” O’Shea said. “You have to rehab the correct way. He was so involved. He had a great physical therapist. He had a goal from day one. He went for it. If you don’t put the time into rehab, the surgery doesn’t do anything for you.”

The family took videos and pictures of his rehab. He was doing some baseball drills in December.

It was in January, in fact, when Junior knew he made the right decision, and he was confident he would play baseball with the Titans.

“I felt 100 percent,” he said. “I wasn’t 100 percent yet, but I felt 100 percent.”

The parents appreciate that Dr. O’Shea took the time to get to know their son. Junior does not go half-speed at anything,

“He doesn’t play scared,” Jennifer said. 

He took the same approach to rehab.

The Titans started their baseball season in March. Spring break was the first week of April. Junior knew he was getting close.

Then, on Wednesday, April 10, he was cleared for full participation. 

“I went pretty hard at practice, trying to push myself to see where I was at,” Junior said.

The next day was a game day.

“I woke up and was a little bit nervous, but an anxious-excitement nervous. I came to school and I was excited beyond belief,” Junior said.

His coach, Lee Hunter, said Junior would not start. He wanted to ease him back into playing for real. That day, a relief inning or two from the mound was the plan. Junior was not going to hit. He was not going to take his normal position at shortstop.

Well, plans changed.

We already know Junior got the strikeout against the first batter he faced this season, getting out of that jam. In the bottom of the inning, he got an at-bat. No storybook ending here. He did not get on base. But later in the game, he did, indeed, play some at shortstop.

“I liked that better than the mound,” Junior said. “That’s my spot. That’s my home right there. I liked being back there.”

Hunter loved seeing No. 1 on the field, too.

“It crushed me,” the coach said, when hearing about the knee injury. 

Not only was Ratigan likely out for the year, but other senior baseball players were facing season-ending injuries, too.

That left the Union coaching staff to lead a motivated young team this season. Motivated, yes, but a team without a “bulldog mentality,” Hunter said. 

The Titans got some of that back last week.

“Tonight, we got better because he is 100-percent bulldog, and it is infectious,” Hunter said on the day of Ratigan’s return.

Ratigan’s parents were emotional, watching him play in a game again.

“It’s what everybody hoped he would do, to come back and have some closure and have some opportunities,” Jennifer said. 

“When the injury happened, the question marks were huge,” said Junior’s dad. “I was just hoping he would get back for baseball. I think he has a future to play, but there is nothing like high school sports. To get to wear the Titan jersey in the spring … it means a lot.”

As far as the future, Junior does want to play sports in college. Baseball or football. There are opportunities. He does not have a preference.

“It depends on the season. If it’s baseball season, that’s all I focus on. Football season? That’s what I focus on.”

Moving forward, he can pick whichever sport knowing his knees are strong and healthy again. And when he graduates in June, he will know he gave everything he could for the Union Titans.

“I’m just grateful God gave me the opportunity to come back,” Junior said, noting that he would have been happy with just one snap to take a knee on the football field.

Then he got this opportunity to play baseball with Union, too.

“I’m beyond grateful for this,” he said.