SAN DIEGO — Fifty days in the life of a professional baseball player. Fasten your seat belts, and then remind yourself afterward of how glamorous that life is.
Nov. 18, 2025: Pitcher Ryan Rolison, a former first-round draft pick of the Colorado Rockies who had one big-league win to his name after eight seasons in pro ball, was taken off the team’s 40-man roster. The move was not unexpected. Rolison said the Rockies had called a couple of days earlier to inform him.
Nov. 19, 2025: “Not 12 hours later,’’ Rolison said, “the Rockies called me back and said the Braves have traded for me.’’ Officially, it went in the books as a cash transaction.
“Being from Tennessee,’’ he said, “a lot of people, my family and close friends, are Braves fans. Everybody’s fired up.’’
Dec. 12, 2025: “Two weeks go by, and the Braves called and said, ‘We need to make a move. So I was on waivers again, and got picked up the next day by the White Sox.”
Dec. 23, 2025: “I was on the roster a couple of weeks, and the White Sox call me on December 23rd and take me off the roster.” Merry Christmas, Ryan.
Dec. 24, 2025-Jan. 6, 2026: Ryan is a man without a team. The new year begins in limbo.
Jan. 7, 2026: Ryan and his fiancee, Lauren Hoselton, are on a plane to Chicago. They are to be married three days later in the University Club. Before the plane takes off, Ryan is awaiting a call to find out whether he had been claimed on waivers by another club. On the plane, of course, no cell service.
When the couple arrives in Chicago, news. “I get claimed by the Cubs. It was a cool way to start off the weekend. My wife’s from Bloomington (Illinois) and Chicago’s our favorite city.’’
A welcome wedding present, made all the sweeter in the span of 11 days in April.
April 14: Rolison is promoted from Triple-A Iowa to the big leagues after Ethan Roberts cuts a finger on his pitching hand. He joins the Cubs in Philadelphia, then pitches a mop-up inning in a 10-4 win over the Phillies. He then sits and waits for 11 days.
April 24: Cubs manager Craig Counsell has a tired bullpen. Caleb Thielbar goes on the 15-day injured list with a hamstring strain. The Cubs fall behind the Dodgers, 4-0, after five. Counsell summons Rolison to pitch the sixth. Then the seventh. Then the eighth.
The Cubs rally. Alex Bregman hits a game-tying home run in the eighth. Dansby Swanson hits a two-run home run in the ninth to win it 6-4. Winning pitcher: Ryan Rolison, his second career win in the big leagues.
“Ryan Rolison, to me, is the story of the game,’’ a grateful Counsell says. “He hasn’t pitched in [11 days] and gives an effort like that, three innings. I’m not sure he ever pitched three innings in a bigger game, and goes through the Dodger lineup,
“That was really impressive.’’
This moment was a long time in coming
Ryan was shagging in the outfield one day in 2021 while with the Rockies and a line drive he did not see struck him in his pitching hand, fracturing the middle finger of his pitching hand. He was out for three months. He has had two shoulder surgeries. The rehab lasted 2½ years. He has had an appendectomy.
Then you have a Friday night, in front of 53,000 people in Dodger Stadium.
“You can easily get frustrated when you look at the guys you were drafted with and see their paths to the big leagues. For a long time, I think that just ate me up, being injured. But I finally came to terms with, everyone’s got their own path.
“So it’s like trusting and staying patient. There’s a lot of times I could have laid down and quit … but I kept going. I kept sticking with the process, and it’s paid off.
“It’s special. I love it here.’’
