Logan Tanner will never forget one of his College World Series experiences.
He’ll never remember the other.
Few people have been on the playing field during both the men’s and women’s College World Series. The Mississippi State catcher is among them.
In May 2000 — long before Tanner helped lead the Bulldogs to the 2021 CWS title — his mother Dalenah played softball for Southern Miss in the WCWS in Oklahoma City.
Logan Tanner was born less than six months later. You do the math.
“I tell my son he was born to play ball,” Dalenah said.
Ever since playing pregnant at college softball’s highest level, Dalenah has done all she could to help her son chase his own dreams. She worked extra jobs, traveled all over the country and helped Tanner hone his skills, all while forging a strong bond in the process.
Now it’s 20 years later, and roles have shifted. Logan Tanner is a national champion. He’s a top prospect in the MLB draft. His long-held professional dreams are close to coming true.
It’s time to pay his mother back.
“Not many people have a mom like I’ve got,” Tanner said.
A story to be told
In the beginning, there was nothing.
Lacking a home field, the Southern Miss softball team practiced at Oak Grove Optimist Park in Hattiesburg, where a trailer housed head coach Lu Harris’ office. The Golden Eagles played only one home series per year.
“We don’t even have our own park,” Dalenah said. “We’re sharing it with the city. And we make it to the College World Series two years in a row? It’s really a story to be told.”
Dalenah, the first Division I softball player ever out of George County High School, played slow-pitch softball for the Rebels — there was no fast pitch. In fact, softball wasn’t offered in any fashion at George County until Dalenah’s freshman year, when her father pushed to add it.
She started out at the University of Mobile on basketball and softball scholarships, but when Southern Miss resurrected its program in 1999 after a seven-year hiatus, she transferred in.
Immediately, Harris turned Dalenah and two other speedsters into left-handed “slappers” focusing on contact hitting to specific spots on the infield.
To the young player, the game suddenly felt backwards.
“I went from leading my high school in home runs to, ‘Oh my gosh, this kid’s fast, let’s throw her on the left side of the plate at 19, 20 years old,’” Dalenah said.
![](https://cdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/QHHjN1PB-300x245.jpg)
But Harris’ schemes worked. Southern Miss beat Oregon State to win its regional at LSU, making it to the College World Series in its first year back.
The Golden Eagles lost to Fresno State and DePaul, but the run only set the stage for an unforgettable 2000.
Southern Miss again won a regional in Baton Rouge, walking off against the host Tigers when teammate Jen Ford was hit by a pitch. Pitcher Courtney Blades — the national player of the year — opened the WCWS with a perfect game against Jennie Finch and Arizona, and Southern Miss also beat Alabama to finish fourth in the eight-team event.
Dalenah played center field throughout the CWS, collecting two hits in the Golden Eagles’ four games. At the time, she was more than three months pregnant.
She said she knew she was pregnant for most of the season and was cleared to play by three doctors. Only her parents, coaches and her best friend on the team knew, but with Dalenah in “the best shape of my life,” no one was worried.
Tanner learned about his secret presence at the CWS when he was about 10. He didn’t mind.
“I always thought it was pretty cool,” he said. “Most people can’t say that.”
‘It was always fun’
Most people also can’t say they’ve got a family like Tanner does.
The MSU catcher has two father figures in his life: his biological father, Brandon Barthel; and Chris Rule, whom Dalenah met when her son was nine months old. Dalenah and Rule married in 2002, were married for 10 years and had two children, Tanner’s half-brothers.
Tanner is close with both men, calling Rule “Daddy” and Barthel “Dad.”
“I’ve got a lot of people who love me and a lot of people who want me to do good, so it’s not a bad problem to have,” he said. “I really like that. It’s a blessing.”
All along, though, he always had Dalenah.
Just 22 when Tanner was born, she said she couldn’t imagine her 21-year-old son having a child just a year from now. As she raised Tanner, she was still maturing herself.
“We grew up together,” Dalenah said. “I grew up a lot faster than I thought I would have to.”
![](https://cdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tanner-2-300x265.jpeg)
Tanner said his mother tried to play the role of both parents when needed. He never felt anything missing.
“It was always fun,” he said. “We were always out in the yard playing. We were always doing something fun. It was cool to have a younger mom, I guess. It was always a good time with her around.”
It wasn’t long before Tanner’s genetic predisposition to diamond sports showed. Barthel pitched in college at Southern Miss, Delgado (Louisiana) Community College and the University of New Orleans; three of Dalenah’s brothers played college baseball in addition to her softball experience.
Dalenah knew her son was special when he started playing at age 5, and he quickly set his sights high. For a first-grade class assignment, he wrote a paper proclaiming he was going to play baseball at Mississippi State.
“He believed it,” Dalenah said. “I believe he spoke it into existence.”
As long as Tanner wanted to play baseball, Dalenah promised him she’d make it happen. She picked up whatever side jobs she could manage to pay for travel tournaments and hotel costs, willing to finance her son’s dreams at considerable cost to herself.
Dalenah said baseball has taken the two of them to more than 20 states together, including New York, Arizona, California and Florida. When Tanner played on the Team Georgia Baseball travel squad and lived in Atlanta for the summer, she made the five-hour drive from Lucedale every weekend to watch him play.
“It does get expensive, but you just figure it out,” Dalenah said. “If your child is doing something that they love and you see the opportunity for them to be successful at it, as a parent, you figure it out.”
For Tanner, that was baseball. His mom knew it.
“Someone has to do it,” she reminded him. “Why not you?”
‘We need this kid’
As it turned out, Tanner was finding the success they both hoped for — but at the wrong position.
With a phenomenally strong arm — a trait shared by Dalenah and her brother, who played for Ron Polk at Mississippi State — Tanner turned heads. He threw up to 96 miles per hour, and he threw strikes.
“Logan never took pitching lessons; he just could throw the ball hard, and he had a lot of command, so he got noticed as a pitcher at the next level,” Dalenah said.
There was just one problem: Logan Tanner didn’t want to be a pitcher.
“I thought of pitching as kind of like a hobby that I was good at,” he said. “I wanted to play every day and be in the lineup. I like to be too active in the game to just sit there and pitch once a week, so I wanted to hit and catch every day.
“Hopefully, we see how far that can take me. If not, I guess I’ll have to end up pitching eventually if I suck, but hopefully not.”
With the 2019 draft approaching, Dalenah told Tanner to “put a number on it.” If a team was willing to pay him enough to pitch, it would be God’s way of telling Tanner his future lay on the mound.
What Dalenah called the price her son put on his head was high. Tanner said he would have had to be a top-10 pick, a range carrying draft slot values of $4.7 million to $8.4 million.
“It would have been a lot,” Tanner said. “It was a lot of money before I was going to sign to be a pitcher.”
With no team willing to meet Tanner’s mark, he was able to catch at the school he fell in love with — once it finally loved him back.
Early on, Mississippi State was hesitant to bring Tanner on board. He attended six baseball camps at Dudy Noble Field but was passed over each time, never hearing back from MSU coaches.
In 2017, before Tanner’s junior season, newly hired assistant coach Jake Gautreau flew down to Fort Myers, Florida, to watch the George County standout play in a showcase. Gautreau was impressed.
On Oct. 5, he called then-head coach Andy Cannizaro, then busy attending his younger brother Garrett’s wedding.
“We need this kid,” Gautreau implored.
Cannizaro called Tanner from the reception, inviting him for a visit the following weekend. During his tour of the facilities in Starkville, Tanner did his best to conceal his excitement.
“Logan’s trying to play it a little tough, like, ‘Well, I’ve got a couple more visits,’” Dalenah said. “As soon as we got home, he’s like, ‘I’m going.’”
The next day, Dalenah was giving hitting lessons when her phone rang. Her son was ready to commit.
She asked him if he was sure. Then she corrected herself. Of course he was.
“I’ve been saying I wanted to play at Mississippi State for a long time — since I can remember,” Tanner said. “I’ve always been a Mississippi State fan, and I’ve always wanted to play baseball here. It came true, so hopefully the next dream comes true after this.”
![](https://cdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tanner-1-Snyder.jpg)
Payback time
For Tanner, the next dream was — and always has been — professional baseball.
He can’t imagine doing anything else.
“I want to play pro ball for a long time, and after that, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Tanner, a communications major. “I don’t have much else I like to do other than play video games and hang out with friends.”
If Tanner continues his current production, he won’t have to worry about it.
The junior catcher is hitting .290, getting on base at a .395 clip and leading Mississippi State with 22 RBIs through the season’s first 18 games. Tanner is ranked as the No. 19 draft prospect by MLB.com, which praises his defense above his offense: His throwing arm is graded at an impressive 70 on the 20-80 scale.
Should Tanner be picked 19th, he’s still in for a big payday. The slot value for that pick is roughly $3.4 million.
Already, Tanner is meeting with financial advisors, planning for a future that is far from guaranteed but for now is not far away. He’s not scared, though. His confidence has never failed him.
“It helps me a lot,” Tanner said. “When I’m not doing well at the plate, I’m still confident in myself that I’m a good player and that everything’s going to come out in the end. Slumps don’t last forever.”
If Tanner is drafted — when, Dalenah corrects herself, trying to speak one more thing into existence — she can’t help but be excited at the prospect of some financial relief. Car payments are among the bills she hopes she can put in the past.
After all the support he received, Tanner is happy to give back.
“It’d mean everything just to pay her back for all the stuff that she’s given me over the years from all the trips we took across the country to play baseball and all the time she spent with me,” he said. “Gas money, food money, hotel money — it’d be a lot of money. If I could just pay back a little bit, I know she would be very grateful for that, and I’d be very grateful to do it.”
Tanner said he’s “ready to go” chase his professional dreams, but he’s got more to accomplish at the school he has long loved.
After helping Mississippi State win its first team national championship in any sport last season, Tanner wants another one in 2022 before turning pro.
“I’m trying to win another national title before I leave here, though, so I’ve got to put that one on hold until I win another national title,” he said.
He accomplished the first feat in Omaha last June, taking his mother up on a long-ago challenge when the Bulldogs beat Vanderbilt to win the CWS title.
“You’ve already been to the Women’s College World Series now,” Dalenah joked with him. “The only way you’re going to be able to up me is to get to go to the Men’s College World Series — and then you’ve got to win it.”
Tanner, for his part, insists he needs to go twice to match his mom’s accomplishments.
But it would be hard for any return trip to match the first.
At the end, Tanner watched from behind the plate at TD Ameritrade Park as third baseman Kamren James snapped a throw to first base for the final out. He ran toward the mound. He shed his mask and fired his glove toward the dugout. He practically tackled pitcher Landon Sims in celebration.
Dalenah Tanner was there, of course, in the stands, watching her son — just like always.
“Just watching his little life unfold, we’ve both learned so much,” Dalenah said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 30 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.