Rick Wolff: NYS Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Speech, delivered by John Wolff

The New York State Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony was on November 9, 2025.

John Wolff, Rick’s son, delivered this speech at the event. Please enjoy.

Good evening, everyone. 

On behalf of the entire Wolff family, I want to express our deepest gratitude to the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame for honoring my father, Rick Wolff, with this incredible distinction. 

My dad would be so proud - and so humbled - to know that his life’s work has been recognized under a title he lived every day — Ambassador to the Game of Baseball. 

I want to thank Rene LaRoux for his leadership and for believing my dad’s story belonged here, and to Pat Geoghegan and Kevin Gallagher, whose passion and persistence helped make this possible — thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. 

My dad’s baseball journey began at Edgemont High School in Scarsdale, New York, where he was a four-sport varsity athlete, setting records in both football and baseball that stood for decades. 

He went on to play college ball at Harvard, helping lead his team to the College World Series, and was later drafted in the 33rd round by the Detroit Tigers. His summers were spent back home, playing in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League for the legendary Al Goldis, where he earned All-Star honors. 

My dad loved telling stories — and he was a great storyteller. Whether we were in the car driving to one of my tournaments or trading emails years later, he was always sharing memories and lessons. 

One of the teammates he often spoke about is here tonight: Jeff Natchez. Jeff and my dad played together in the Tigers organization in Clinton, Iowa. My dad would reminisce about the long bus rides, the cheap motels, and the teammates who became family. 

He once wrote Jeff a letter about that summer — about the cramped clubhouses, the smell of dog chow drifting in from the plant next door, and those 4 a.m. truck-stop breakfasts between games. 

He wrote, “The most important thing in my life then was trying so hard to get a hit or two each night. I had to deal with a lot of oh-fer games, but I look back on that summer with great joy.” 

That was 1974. 

That was my dad — he saw joy in the struggle, meaning in the hard work. He believed that baseball, like life, was less about the outcome and more about the journey. 

And he often quoted one of his favorite lines from Jim Bouton’s Ball Four:

“You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end, it turns out it was the other way around all the time.” 

That line was his truth. Baseball never let go of him — and honestly, he never wanted it to.

When he was 37 years old, he was assigned to write a story for Sports Illustrated with the South Bend White Sox in the Class-A Midwest League. 

He wasn’t supposed to play — he was there to observe and write about life in the minors. But during the very first game, a fight broke out and several players were suspended. 

Now, this was 1989. He hadn’t played professional baseball in more than 15 years, but suddenly my dad was needed at second base. 

He joked that the glove he took onto the field was actually older than most of his teammates. And somehow, after all those years, he went 4-for-7 with a double and three RBIs. By Monday morning, he was back at his publishing job in New York City — but if you look up the 1989 Midwest League stats, you’ll still find his name: Rick Wolff, .571 average — the highest batting average in the league. 

When South Bend won the division and the championship later that year, they gave him the key to the city and a championship ring.

That story still makes me smile — because it captures who he was: joyful, competitive, and completely devoted to the game. 

After his playing days, his passion shifted from performance to development. He loved helping others — players, students, colleagues — reach their potential. 

At Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, New York, where he coached for eight seasons, he poured his heart into building a program that believed in people as much as it believed in winning. That said, he continues to have the highest winning percentage in school history. 

Mercy wasn’t a big-budget Division I program, but to him, it was the perfect place to mold both talent and character. 

Mercy College

He found players others overlooked — the 26-year-old freshman just back from the military, the mailman who’d finish his route, park his truck by the field, and start launching balls over the fence. 

He knew that greatness often hides in plain sight.

His Mercy teams punched above their weight, taking on Division I opponents who thought they’d get an easy win. After a few upsets, those schools stopped returning his calls. 

My dad loved that. 

He loved proving that heart and preparation could compete with pedigree any day of the week. Those years at Mercy were among the happiest of his baseball life. 

Before sports psychology was a buzzword, my dad was already living it. 

In the 1980s and ’90s he joined the Cleveland Indians organization as one of the first mental-skills coaches in Major League Baseball. 

He helped young players like Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Carlos Baerga, Kenny Lofton, and Sandy Alomar Jr. handle the mental side of pressure — long before anyone else in the game was really talking about it. 

He wasn’t just helping players hit or field better; he was helping them think better. 

He taught them how to manage failure, how to visualize success, and how to believe in themselves. 

When tragedy struck in 1993 — the boating accident that claimed the lives of Tim Crews and Steve Olin — he helped the team heal. 

Carlos Baerga, who’s here tonight, has told me how much my dad’s steadiness and compassion meant to that clubhouse. 

Cleveland had some exceptional teams in those years, and although the 1994 strike may have cost them a World Series, they came roaring back in 1995 — and my dad was awarded a championship ring when they won the ALCS. He cherished it for what it represented — a family that pulled together. 

But no matter how far the game took him, he never lost touch with his New York roots. 

He spent years playing semi-pro ball for the New Rochelle Robins, often leading the team in hitting. Those weekend afternoons meant everything to him — the competition, the camaraderie, and the sound of the game echoing across a local park. It brought him back to where it all began, to the pure joy of playing high-level baseball in New York.

Many people here knew my dad as the host of The Sports Edge on WFAN — his Sunday-morning radio show where parents, coaches, and fans tuned in for his thoughtful, measured take on youth and amateur sports. 

In an era when sports talk was often loud and sensational, he was the opposite — calm, fair, and deeply empathetic. He wasn’t there to stir controversy; he was there to teach. 

Through his books, his broadcasts, and his work as an editor, he shared wisdom that reached beyond baseball. His lessons weren’t about how to win games — they were about how to live your life with integrity, resilience, and grace. 

For all he accomplished professionally, my dad’s greatest pride was his family. 

My mom, Trish, was his best friend and his biggest supporter — they were truly a team. My sisters and I were his world. 

At home, he was the same man people admired publicly — steady, kind, quietly funny, and endlessly patient. He believed in teaching, even when we didn’t realize we were being taught. 

He once gave me a bound stack of pages for my 16th birthday — something he called “The Book of Lectures.” Inside were dozens of reflections on life — some serious, some funny, all filled with the same curiosity and warmth that defined him. 

But for me, the truest version of my dad was on a baseball field during batting practice. 

That was our thing. From the time I was a kid, we communicated through batting practice.And even into his seventies, he could still throw great BP. His arm never seemed to tire. 

We’d find a local field — any field with an L-screen really — and we’d hit until dusk. He’d throw, I’d swing, and we’d talk about life while shagging balls together. Those quiet walks through dusty fields, that proud smile when I really connected — that’s where our relationship lived. 

It didn’t matter how old we were or what else was happening in life. When we were out there, it was just us — father and son, coach and player, two guys who loved the sound of a wooden bat meeting a baseball. 

My dad’s story — from Harvard to the Tigers, from Mercy to Cleveland, from publishing houses to WFAN — is remarkable.

But the real story of Rick Wolff is one of impact. 

He made everyone around him better — whether you were a teammate in Clinton, a player at Mercy, a major leaguer in Cleveland, or a kid in the backyard learning to hit line drives. 

He believed in the power of baseball to teach life — and in the power of kindness to make that life worth living. 

So tonight, as we celebrate his induction into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame, we want to say thank you — not just to this Hall, but to everyone who ever shared the field, the dugout, the press box, or a conversation with him. 

And most of all, thank you, Dad — for your love, your lessons, and your example. 

You showed us how to compete with integrity, how to care deeply, and how to find joy in every swing. 

We miss you. We love you. And if you were here tonight, I know exactly how we’d celebrate this honor tomorrow morning — by taking batting practice. 

Thank you.