THE BUMPY ROAD BACK: NICK MCLAIN’S JOURNEY
OF INJURY AND PERSEVERANCE BY DAN HELOTIE THE VOICE OF THE CANNON BALLERS
KANNAPOLIS, N.C. – As the sun pours down onto the green grass and blue seats at Atrium Health Ballpark, the humid heat is far more oppressive than California native Nick McLain is used to. Lucky for McLain, his journey to Kannapolis, where he patrols the outfield for the Cannon Ballers, has proven him to be battle-tested. Growing up in a sports-crazed house in Orange County, California, with two older brothers, Matt and Sean, is far from the hardest challenge McLain has faced to this point. In fact, he shares that it is probably one of his biggest blessings. Until his oldest brother Matt, who is now an infielder for the Cincinnati Reds, turned 16, all three brothers shared a room and set of bunk beds. “(Life growing up was) ultra-competitive,” McLain said. “We had a basketball hoop at the house, so that was the main way to compete. We started golfing at a pretty young age. My mom would drop us off and we would do lessons over there, and there was always a putting contest or something.” As McLain watched his older brothers progress in their journeys in baseball, the youngest earned attention of his own with distinction as the No. 3-ranked outfielder in California as a high schooler. Despite attention as a draft prospect, McLain journeyed not far from home to UCLA, where his oldest brother Matt had spent three seasons and got drafted in the first round of the 2021 MLB Draft. Despite being in the closest thing to paradise, McLain encountered the first setback of his career, stress-fracturing the L4 and L5 vertebrae in his lower back, forcing him to miss his entire freshman season. “I broke it in January and then for that next month, I tried to play on it,” McLain said. “I wanted to start. I wanted to contribute. That was my journey of getting on the field as a freshman and getting my name back out there again. I had some high school draft interest and I said no, so I wanted to really go to crush it as a freshman and get my name out there. I think our team was going to be really good. So, it would have been exciting, but the cards did not work out that way.” After going through the rehab and recovery necessary, McLain opted for a change of scenery by following his other brother Sean, who is now in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization. McLain departed the Bruins and began his next chapter at Arizona State. But of course, not without a bump in the road or two. A broken hamate in his left wrist sidelined McLain just before his first season as a Sun Devil, but he quickly rebounded to earn an All-Conference honorable mention distinction in his 23-game debut season. McLain amassed an 11-game hit streak to begin his collegiate career, setting records in what he
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