DENVER – Released from professional baseball at the age of 20, Logan Soole was disillusioned with the game.
 
"When you get released, it's hard," he said. "You kind of sour on baseball. I wanted to enjoy it again, but at that point I wasn't. I was frustrated. It was my job, and basically I got fired."
 
Yet, thanks to a largely unknown rule, Soole still had a chance to play college baseball again, despite having played two professional seasons.
 
And Ryan Strain, who had just become head coach at Metropolitan State University of Denver in the summer of 2017, knew about it. Strain, who had recruited Soole out of Monarch High School in Louisville, Colo., back when the coach at been an assistant at Division I Southern Illinois, gave Soole a call.
 
"I knew he'd been released and that he wasn't playing," Strain said. "I called him out of the blue. We hadn't talked since the day he told me he was going to sign (to play pro ball)."
 
The timing couldn't have been better. Soole was already thinking about attending MSU Denver anyway.
 
"He told me he got the job and asked if I was interested in playing," Soole said. "It worked out."
 
Now, 18 months, later, Soole is in his second season with the MSU Denver program, and he's starring for a team that went 6-5 in non-conference play heading into this weekend's opening league series.
 
"He was great when he was recruiting me to SIU, and it was nice to be able to talk to him again," Soole said. "We had talked about minor league baseball before I signed, and he had a lot of good things to say."
 
Soole, a preseason all-region selection, is a left-handed hitter and thrower and is batting .355 with two homers and 11 RBIs as the Roadrunners' regular center fielder. He's also part of MSU Denver's four-man starting pitching rotation and, while being used as both a starter and reliever thus far, he is 1-1 with a 2.84 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 12 2/3 innings.
 
He's the reigning Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference player of the week after a performance that included a two-homer, eight-RBI game against Mary (N.D.) in which he was 4 for 4 with two homers and two doubles while matching the school's single-game RBI record in merely three innings of what turned out to be a 31-3 victory.
 
Soole will be back in action this weekend at the Regency Athletic Complex in a four-game series with Colorado State University-Pueblo to open Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play. Friday's game has been moved up to 2 p.m., while a 1 p.m. Saturday'doubleheader and Sunday's noon series finale are also on the schedule.

Soole, who is scheduled to pitch the first game of the doubleheader, will play center field in the other games. He and the Roadrunners will be out to prove their success last weekend wasn't just a case of there's something about Mary.
 
"He's going to have a good year," Strain said. "I'd be surprised if he doesn't continue to put up good numbers and have better numbers than he did last year."
 
Soole may not have put up any numbers at all last season. After being released by the Arizona Diamondbacks shortly after reporting for spring training in March, 2017, he got the call from Strain in August. Through fall practice, though, he wasn't always feeling it.
 
"It was different, trying to get back into it," Soole said. "I was trying to find my love for the game again. Getting to know these guys – we have so many great guys on this team – has brought me back into it.
 
"Minor league baseball is such an individual sport. You have buddies and friends and you want them to do well because you want to be a good person, but at the same time you want to move up. Having these guys on our team has definitely brought that love for the game back."
 
Strain could relate to what Soole was going through, since he had been released as a minor league player, too. Soole said it was helpful to be able to talk through that experience with someone else who had gone through it.
 
Soole's physical abilities were still there.
 
"I think it took longer for him to get himself going mentally than it did physically," Strain said. "You get released, you leave baseball for a while, you're a little bitter, you don't really want to play again. I think he had to work through that.
 
"Then he had to adapt to playing the game again at a high level, because no matter what level you're playing at, there are good players everywhere. I think he had to work through that and find the love again. There were some times during that fall where I wasn't sure if he really wanted to do it. But he got through it, and then we got into the spring and we started playing games, and that competitive edge came back. He's a great competitor. That got his juices going again."
 
Soole is able to play college baseball after playing professionally because of a rule that allows players to play at a level other than Division I if – among other things – they haven't signed with an agent.
 
One of the more famous to star in Division II after a short stay in professional ball is John Silviano, who was released by Toronto and went on to hit .405 with 31 homers and 75 RBIs for Lynn (Fla.) in 2016.
 
Soole said he was vaguely aware of the opportunity to come back and play college baseball, but he hadn't seen anything in writing to prove it was possible. Thankfully, the 23^rd-round draft choice in 2015 had never signed with an agent.
 
"Coming out of high school, honestly I didn't know enough about it," Soole said. "I had a couple of people reach out and say they would be interested in being my agent, but I was already playing minor-league baseball by then. And most of the guys drafted after the 10^th round don't have agents, so that's just kind of how it was. Luckily it worked out great."
 
Soole reported to rookie ball in 2015 and played for the Diamondbacks' Arizona League affiliate, hitting .261 and stealing seven bases in 37 games. He moved up to short-season Missoula (Mont.) of the Pioneer League in 2016, but playing time was sparse and he hit .204 in 29 games.
 
"It's really hard on those guys," Strain said of professional baseball. "There are so many levels and so many players, especially outfielders. The outfield position is probably the most difficult position to maneuver, because unless you're a real speedster and can play center field, you're going to have to play one of the corners. And if you're playing the corners, you have to hit home runs to move your way up the minor leagues."
 
Soole, who played mostly on the corners as a pro, hit for decent power in high school. But he didn't hit any homers as a professional.
 
"My first year was good," Soole said. "I thought I was playing pretty well. There are so many different coaches in professional baseball, people are telling you different things, and you're trying to figure out which thing to work on.
 
"I went back for my second year, and I wasn't getting as many chances to play. No excuse, but it's hard to produce when you're getting three at-bats a week."
 
Soole had fine-tuned his swing and was ready to go when he reported for minor league camp in 2017. But two days into it, the Diamondbacks told him there wasn't a spot for him.
 
Strain, a Denver native whose recruiting area naturally included Denver while he was a Southern Illinois assistant, was able to successfully recruit Soole two times out of three. Soole had signed with the Salukis before getting drafted and turning Strain down.
 
Interestingly, when recruiting Soole out of high school, Strain also liked a Denver product named Grant Witherspoon.
 
"Both were really talented kids," Strain said. "I think Logan was a little bit ahead of Grant at that time."

After losing Soole to pro ball, the Salukis tried to get back in on Witherspoon, who decided instead to attend Tulane. Three years later, Witherspoon was a fourth-round draft pick by Tampa Bay.
 
"To Grant's credit, he went to Tulane and kept getting better," Strain said. "He was able to go and get a lot of at-bats and mature over those years."
 
Soole has continued to develop physically, too.
 
"His swing is better," Strain said. "He understands his body better. He's a lot stronger, a lot more physical. Look at him at 18 compared to 22, and he's a lot different. And he's worked hard for that.
 
"Those three or four years are huge for development."
 
Soole hit .318 with five homers and 24 RBIs last season while also going 5-2 with a 3.49 ERA and 54 strikeouts in 49 innings.
 
Though his velocity is better when focusing strictly on pitching, Soole typically features a fastball in the 86 to 90 mph range along with a changeup and slider. The MSU Denver staff tries to limit and alternate his workloads.
 
"They're totally separate," said Soole, who did pitch one inning in minor-league ball. "I tend to bring my at-bats with me when I'm pitching, and I've worked hard to separate that. I like both of them, and it's been good getting back into it."
 
Strain recruited Soole originally for his dual-threat ability, and that hasn't changed.
 
"It took him a while to be able to get back into shape to pitch," Strain said. "That's why he didn't pitch until about mid-year last season. But he's definitely a dual threat. He can pitch and play the outfield at any (college) level he'd want to."
 
A junior, Soole lost one year of eligibility as part of coming back to play college baseball.
 
Now one of the best college players in the region, who knows what might happen? Maybe, like Silviano, he could make his way back to pro ball.
 
"I hope Logan gets another chance to play professional baseball," Strain said. "I think he's good enough to do it. He's definitely more physically ready now. I hope he gets another chance because he deserves it."
 
As for Soole, he's not looking too far ahead.
 
"I'd definitely like to give it another shot," he said. "Nothing is guaranteed. I'm just trying to take it day by day. I've been there, done that. But if it happens it happens. I'm not going to go home and stress about it every night, because that's not worth it. I'm going to live my life, and if I get that opportunity I'm going to take advantage of it."