Four years ago, Michael Hartnagel was just a normal high school baseball player on his way to play Division III baseball at DePauw. Now, he is on his way to play professional baseball.
Hartnagel came to DePauw in the fall of 2013 as just another first-year baseball player. He was good. He thought he got under-recruited, but nobody saw his rise to stardom coming.
“He was the type of player everyone knew was going to contribute right away,” Zach Starr ‘14 said. “I don’t know if even he saw what was coming in his future though.”
His first year he started immediately at short stop over many veterans with experience. He was a well-oiled machine on his way to a .337 batting average, three home runs, 23 runs batted in and 56 hits. He was named North Coast Athletic Conference Newcomer of the Year, as well as second-team honors.
His one year at DePauw ended in exciting fashion. The Tigers took on nationally-ranked College of Wooster, the third-highest scoring offense in the country, in the NCAC Championship. Behind a double and two runs scored by Hartnagel, DePauw upset the top team in the conference and headed to the NCAA tournament.
“To this day that game will go down as one of my greatest baseball memories,” Hartnagel said. “I think it will always stay that way.”
His success not only caught the attention of the DePauw community, but it also caught the attention of a head coach at a school in Indianapolis. That school was Butler University.
“It’s every kid’s dream to play Division I baseball,” Hartnagel said. “Finding out I had the opportunity to play it was amazing.”
It was not an easy decision to leave DePauw for Hartnagel, especially coming off the thrilling NCAC championship. He thought about it a lot. He had lifelong friendships he had made at DePauw, but he had a dream he could chase at Butler.
He was forced to redshirt his next year due to NCAA transfer rules, so his redshirt sophomore year served as his coming out party in the division I world. He led the team in batting average at .319, and fell four games short of Butler’s all-time hitting-streak record as he recorded a but in 20 straight games.
This year has gone even better. Through 40 games, he is batting .362 with 54 hits and 13 doubles. With this success, he has the opportunity most kids who play Division III baseball do not get. He will get a shot to play professionally.
“Playing professionally will always be something I push for,” Hartnagel said. “I want to do it.”
He is a kid playing at the highest level of collegiate baseball. He is the best player on that team. He is going to get the opportunity to play professionally. And through all his experiences, he still holds a small liberal arts school in rural Indiana in his heart.
“I miss the guys,” Hartnagel said. “It’s a family over there. There are special people that go to DePauw, and I miss them all a lot.”
He still keeps track of DePauw baseball very closely. When Butler has a game on the same day as DePauw, the first thing he checks when he gets in the locker room is the score of the DePauw game.
“They’re doing so well,” Hartnagel said. “I love seeing the success they are having. Those guys deserve it. The seniors are so talented. I hope they get back to the conference championship and get to experience what we did my freshman year.”
One day Hartnagel might be playing in the MLB. He will be announced as a Butler graduate. Butler fans will talk about him for years. Teams in the Big East will praise his departure from the conference. What people will not know is the impact he had on DePauw, or the impact DePauw had on him.