Surgeries hide secrets.

Uniforms conceal the scars. Rehabilitation becomes agonizing. Tucked away from the crowds and teammates, the light dims. Hope becomes a stranger.

Ryan Rolison, after his second shoulder operation in two years, wondered if he was ever going to throw a ball again.

“I was anxious. I was depressed and wondering, ‘Why me?’” Rolison told The Denver Post last week of his mindset in the fall of 2023. “As a competitor, all you want to do is be on the field. It was so frustrating. It took me to a dark place.”Rolison realized baseball was cruel in 2021 when the unlikeliest bit of circumstances prevented him from reaching the big leagues. His golden ticket as the Rockies’ first-round pick in 2018 became a ride to nowhere.

Within days of a promotion, he underwent an emergency appendectomy. Shagging fly balls a week later in Salt Lake City, a line drive struck his left hand, breaking a bone.

It began a remarkable spiral of injuries and ineffectiveness that tested his faith and conviction. He missed the 2022 season, all but four games of 2023, and finally returned in late May of 2024.

“I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,” Rolison said.

The hardest part came after Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed the second procedure in August of 2023, “changing the structure of my shoulder,” as Rolison put it. It involved shaving the acromion bone and the placement of two anchors in the labrum.

The pain was finally gone. But Rolison thought his career might be as well. He was 26 with a thick medical file and diminished velocity. His parents, Gary and Carol Ann, and brother, Austin, did their best to encourage him.

His career at a crossroads, Rolison reluctantly attended a football game at Ole Miss, where he once starred for the Rebels. Lauren Hoselton, on the board for former student letter winners, checked him in. Truth is, she wasn’t thrilled to be at the alumni event either, wanting to join her friends at a tailgate party.

“I am a firm believer there was a reason he was there,” Hoselton said.

“She,” Rolison said, “has been my rock ever since.”

A day after they met in October 2023, Rolison retreated to Cressey Sports Performance in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He needed a change of scenery, a place to begin reinventing himself through workouts with trainer Eric Cressey, who knew Ryan from their time together with Team USA’s 18-and-under World Cup team, and physical therapy with Eric Schoenberg.

“He’s a great kid. I distinctly remember when he came in, he talked about how having one shoulder surgery was not good, having a second was really not good and you don’t get a chance after a third,” Cressey said. “He was very aware of the challenge in front of him.”

This is when the scattered pieces of Rolison’s career began coming back together. Through rotational exercises with a medicine ball, he strengthened his shoulder without exhausting his arm. Having Hoselton there helped accelerate his recovery.

She didn’t know much about baseball, but as a former javelin thrower at Ole Miss who had her rotator cuff repaired, she understood better than most what he was going through.

“We found out we had so much more in common,” Hoselton said. “We are both competitive. We play Wordle every day to see who is the champion. And as he was going through this, I think he found out about himself, and that there is more than being a baseball player.”

As his mental outlook improved, Rolison returned to the minor leagues in 2024. He was healthy, he was happy, but he was not himself on the mound. His shoulder forced the reframing of expectations. Hoselton constantly texted him their favorite GIF, reading, “Maybe you didn’t realize how far you’ve come because you keep raising the bar.”

But Rolison wanted more. He did not want his journey remembered with a pang of sympathy. He wanted to reach the big leagues.

So after an uneven 2024 (5.19 ERA in 22 relief appearances), Rolison returned to Oxford, Miss., with his now fiancée — the couple will marry in January — determined to abandon regret.

He showed up at the baseball facility, and laid out his story and goal to new Rebels pitching coach Joel Mangrum. Mangrum spent the previous six seasons as the Cleveland Guardians minor league pitching coordinator. His background made him receptive to Rolison’s plea, and the pitcher’s attitude convinced him the 27-year-old might just pull this off.

“It was obvious that he was sick and tired of being (bad). He was sick and tired of being hurt,” Mangrum said. “He felt like he could still be really good.”

Rolison’s dedication became an obsession. He sculpted his body. He ate right. And he never missed a workout. He threw live batting practice in frigid fall weather. Over Christmas break, he sent Mangrum videos of him firing plyo balls off a cinderblock somewhere in Illinois with “snow in the background.”

But it was on the mound that something marvelous began to happen. After accessing Rolison’s minor league data, Mangrum formulated a plan. He made it clear that the left-hander’s velocity and pitch shapes were below MLB standards. Rolison discovered the right mechanical pattern, and his velo jumped from 92 to 96 miles per hour. His breaking ball became sharper. He added a slider.

“He needed a lot of work. But day after day after day, he was the first one in and the last to leave,” Mangrum said. “I really started to pull for the kid and care about him.”

When Rolison arrived in spring training, he was no longer on the 40-man roster, but received opportunities to pitch in big league games. He turned heads. His dream, forever fuzzy, was back in focus.

“There was a question mark about me. ‘Either he’s going to do it. Or he’s not,’” Rolison said. “I was happy with how I did.”

Rolison’s success continued in Triple-A with the Isotopes. He found his rhythm, showing good fastball command while improving against left-handers.

“He’s been a pleasant surprise,” Isotopes manager Pedro Lopez said.

Through sheer determination and his support system, Rolison worked himself up from the bottom.

All that was left was a call to the top.

“It would mean,” said Rolison, voice halting, “everything.”

Last Saturday in Oklahoma City, he started and pitched one inning. It was strange since he was scheduled to throw more.

Hoselton, watching from the stands, thought the same thing.

After the game, Rolison texted, asking where she was sitting.

There was urgency in his message. They finally met on the concourse.

“We need to pack our bags,” he said. “We are going to Denver.”

After getting the opportunity yanked away from him four years earlier, after his shoulder betrayed him, after countless lonely days and long nights, the wait was over. Rolison was a big leaguer.

“It is hard to put into words,” Hoselton said through tears of Rolison, who made his debut Tuesday and escaped a bases-loaded jam, “how proud I am of him.”