As a toddler, Kyle Wolff used to toss baseballs over the roof of his house, run to the other side, and throw them back over. He did this for hours, tirelessly, in his hometown of Andover, Mass.
Ball was actually the first word he ever said.
“It wasn’t Mama, it wasn’t Dada, it was ball,” Melissa Longin, Wolff’s mother, said. “Honestly, for a long time, it was ball.”
Until a preschool conference, it didn’t occur to Longin that her son had unusual arm strength for his age.
Longin watched Wolff, even before middle school, routinely chuck a baseball over the house. She thought most kids could do that.
While Longin was more concerned with how his friendships were going, and how he was integrating into the class, Wolff’s teachers noticed.
They scoffed at her.
“They were like ‘No, you don’t understand,’” Longin said. “‘He’s athletic in a way we’ve never seen.’”
Then she started to notice, too.
When Wolff began playing soccer and T-ball, Longin needed to carry around a birth certificate to verify his age. Wolff was noticeably taller, bigger, and stronger than other children his age. The other parents didn’t like that. His athleticism and coordination was different, Longin said.
At that age, there are no winners or losers. Wolff didn’t understand that principle, either. Longin said his natural instinct was to be a competitive ballplayer.
“He was like ‘I know there’s a winner, I know how many times I hit the ball, I know how many times everybody else did it,’” Longin said. “He instinctively knew what was going on, and was so frustrated by the process.”
There is a shedload of nostalgia connected with those memories for Longin. Those moments stick with her. Now, when she attends Wolff’s games, she laughs and thinks about how ridiculous those situations were.
Wolff is now a high-performing athlete at the collegiate level, not to her surprise. He competes in one of college baseball’s top conferences, the ACC.
Despite him not calling it a breakout season, Wolff proved he could be Boston College baseball’s most successful hitter during his sophomore year with the Eagles.
Wolff led the team with a .315 batting average and started in all 53 games at first base. He did all of that while battling a torn ligament in his pinky, which required surgery over the summer. He also busted his left-middle finger late in the season by colliding with the railing.
He didn’t let those things back him down from playing. Not other parents when he was a kid, and certainly not his fingers last season.
“I wouldn’t say breakout, [because] it was definitely more of like I knew that I could do it, and in my head and in my mind, I knew I could compete with these guys,” Wolff said. “Despite the injuries, I told coach I still wanted to play. I knew I could still contribute.”
Wolff tore his ligament on March 13 while sliding into second base against Siena College in a 20–4, seven-inning blowout. The Eagles had only played one conference series prior to the contest, and they had dropped all three games to NC State.
“I felt like at first, you had that adrenaline that will keep you going,” Wolff said. “I was like ‘We’re only halfway through the season. I’m gonna keep doing this.’ I wanted to help the team win.”
Wolff suffered the injury in garbage time, meaning the outcome of the game had practically been decided already. He thought he jammed the finger or sprained it. The heat of the moment deluded him from the more considerable damage.
“I basically just had to readjust my swing after that,” Wolff said. “I couldn’t lift the ball into the outfield to hit doubles or hit home runs. I was more trying to hit low line drives. I would just roll over because I didn’t have the grip strength and the bat speed.”
Wolff opened up to BC head coach Todd Interdonato after a few weeks of playing through the injury. He eventually got an MRI. The x-ray came back and the ligament was torn, but the doctor said he wouldn’t damage the finger if he continued to play.
So Wolff wanted to contribute even if his production took a hit.
“That’s all he wanted, to be helpful, really,” Longin said. “He watched a lot last year, in 2023, and learned a lot. He just wanted to play a role in helping the team in whatever way that would be—at [designated hitter] or earning a first base spot or just cheering on his teammates.”
The second injury occurred on April 17 when Wolff tumbled into the railing behind first base in a 8–2 win against UConn. He was hitting .355 going into the contest, best in the lineup by a wide margin.
After that, there wasn’t much of a grip he had left on the bat.
“I had to go pinky off the bat, and I would tape my fingers, like buddy tape my fingers together,” Wolff said. “I tried everything, and then ended up hurting my other finger. So now I was hitting with like half a hand.”
Whether it was with two hands, one hand, or half a hand, Wolff’s ability at the plate didn’t severely drop.
“That is his resilience, and I’m his biggest fan,” Longin said. “A good foundation was really laid. That was part of the reason he played through the injury, is because he just felt apart of this team and wanted to contribute as long as he could and as much as they would let him.”
He regularly posted hits down the final stretch of the season—15 in a 18-game span—and still finished the season with a batting average above the .300 mark.
Wolff led the Eagles with 62 hits in a team-leading 197 at-bats, and came second in a handful of offensive categories, such as on-base percentage (.421), OPS (.924), and RBI’s (44).
He made critical efforts even throughout a season where the Eagles finished in the bottom of their conference.
“You use that 2023 season as a development year, learning from [the] older, veteran guys,” Wolff said. “Coming into this year, I was like ‘Alright, you play with confidence, you know you can do it.’ Everyone’s told you at BC that you can do it. So I just showcased myself.”
When Joe Vetrano, a former BC first baseman who currently plays in the Los Angeles Dodgers minor-league system, thinks about Wolff, he thinks about a decision and a transition they both made. Vetrano is considered one of BC’s best offensive weapons of all time, accumulating 35 home runs and a staggering 114 RBI’s over his final two seasons.
Going into his sophomore year, Vetrano decided to give up pitching even though he was recruited to BC as a two-way player. That’s how he wanted to help the team win, and that’s how he thought he could help the team win most effectively.
Former BC head coach Mike Gambino believed in him, so he made the switch once and for all.
“Things just kind of took off from there,” Vetrano said. “And it was very similar with Kyle, too. I saw Kyle start pitching in the fall a little bit while he was raking. I was like ‘Kyle, man, you should hang it up on the mound.’ He was like ‘What do you mean?’ I was like ‘Dude, you’re barreling up every baseball. You’re a hitter, man.’”
Right from fall practices during his freshman year, Wolff showed his ability to hit bombs, according to Vetrano.
“In the fall, when we were intersquading and scrimmaging, the kid just raked,” Vetrano said. “It was like ‘Damn.’ At one point, I legit didn’t think I was gonna play. An assistant coach came up to me and was like ‘Hey, you better turn it up, [because] Kyle’s coming for you.’ He was barreling up every ball in the fall, and I was like ‘Oh my God.’”
Wolff wasn’t after Vetrano’s job, but he was willing to do whatever it took to assist the team in any capacity.
“My goal was to play as hard as possible, to work as hard as possible, and to leave it all out on the field,” Wolff said. “If they decided that I was the best player to go with at first base or [designated hitter] or not in the lineup, then great, amazing. If I wasn’t, then I’d go on the bench and be the best teammate that I could be.”
Wolff spent countless hours watching Vetrano’s fundamentals, both at the plate and at first base. The two developed a kinship, Wolff described, that went beyond the baseball diamond or the training facilities.
“Kyle was different because we were together for like three hours a day,” Vetrano said. “It was something like ‘Hey, we’re gonna be spending a lot of time together. Let’s shoot the shit a little bit, every day get to know each other a little better.’ And he was more vocal with me because he was comfortable with me.”
If Wolff had questions about defense, footwork or alignment in the box, or what to look for on pitch deliveries, Vetrano was there to help him, he said.
“I feel like every practice, his confidence was just growing,” Vetrano said. “And you saw what he did this year. I think that’s because he was comfortable. You get really comfortable at a place like Boston College and in that environment.”
Because the two practiced together so often, Vetrano has a memory bank of anecdotes from Wolff’s freshman year.
Vetrano’s favorite stems from a pop-up priority drill.
For the drill, former assistant coach Tyler Holt would launch balls into foul territory off the first-base line. Vetrano and Wolff had to locate the ball while staying aware of their surroundings, and secure the catch.
“We’re doing pop-ups near our dugout, learning how to deal with the fences and all that,” Vetrano said. “Our assistant coach goes ‘What do you guys do if you want to go into the right lane on the highway? What’s the first thing you do?’”
They both responded. Put on the turn signal.
“Coach said ‘After you put on the turn signal, what do you do?’” Vetrano said. “Kyle went ‘You drive into the right lane.’”
Holt, furious, looked at Wolff in disbelief, according to Vetrano.
“So Coach goes ‘No, Kyle, you look in the damn blind spot,’” Vetrano said. “Kyle was laughing, I was choking with laughter, and he’s like ‘My bad, my bad.’ That was a funny moment. I’m not surprised he ran into the railing and injured himself.”
Wolff considered the 2023 season to be a development year behind Vetrano, but he still received 41 at-bats. He faced top MLB draft picks just a year out of high school, and he almost went to a super regional. He also tallied a hit at Fenway Park in the 2023 ALS Awareness Game.
Wolff seized the chance to show what he could do, and his transition into the starting first base role in 2024 was a result of that, even with a new coaching staff.
“I knew that no matter what coach came in, the keys from Joe to me would not just be passed,” Wolff said. “I would not have the job right away. I knew there was nothing set in stone until I was in the lineup on opening day. That’s the way it turned out.”
Wolff attributes his leadership skills to what he learned from Vetrano. As an upperclassman on the team next year, according to Wolff, his job will resemble how Vetrano mentored him.
“It’s hard being a freshman in the ACC and coming in and making an impact,” Wolff said. “He helped get my mind right, because he had those struggles his freshman year, too. Everybody does. So it was like passing the torch of ‘Alright, everyone struggles your freshman year, but you’re still a great player.’ One thing does not make or break you in this sport.”
When one guy’s on, Vetrano said, the ball just keeps rolling. This past season, Wolff’s accomplishments were like a catalyst for the rest of the team.
“Kyle, the way he played, guys would just follow him,” Vetrano said. “He was the team leader in average, many other statistics, so people follow that and want to be a part of that. When you’re doing something good, others try and hop on that train. That’s what was so contagious when I was there.”
Wolff wants to do it his own, unique way, as well.
“I think it’s just being me,” Wolff said. “I don’t need to go out there and be Joe Vetrano. I just got to be me and now the bar is set. Now I just have to raise it that much more, that much harder in the gym, before practice, after practice, staying late, coming early.”
When Wolff initially thought about playing college baseball, according to Longin, a high-academic, Division III school seemed the most realistic option to his parents.
“But he was kind of always saying ‘No, I wanna play Division I,’” Longin said. “And then it became Division I, Power Five. There’s always that question mark [of] can you do it? I didn’t really have that much of a question, I feel like if he set his mind to it he could try, but baseball is hard. It’s more failure than success.”
This past season showed Wolff’s family that he belongs at the level he set his mind to.
“We’ve watched him play at each level now,” Longin said. “Getting to BC, and getting to the ACC, you wonder [if he] can continue to have that level of success because now you’re in this really small point of the triangle. That’s now another question checked off, and now it’s like, what’s next?”
What’s next for Wolff isn’t a surprise. It’s a goal that almost every high-level college baseball player has, and that many have had before him. Vetrano included.
“If you’re playing big-time, Division I baseball, your goal is to turn pro,” Wolff said. “So short answer, yes, that’s my goal. But I’m also realistic with myself and with my expectations. I don’t want to look too far down the line because baseball is just a game. It can be taken away from you at any moment.”
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