There is no way for Tolle to wall off the emotions that come with remembering and paying tribute to his mother this weekend. He won’t try.
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“I’m not going to shut myself off from what it is like,” said Tolle.
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Tolle is very much Jina’s son. The 23-year-old Red Sox lefthander radiates delight in everything from casual interactions with strangers to the roaring, double fist-pumps on the mound. His mom’s influence?
“More than anybody could ever imagine,” said Tolle. “The joy that she had, I try to keep with me, especially when it comes to baseball. She always said, ‘Show people why you play, who you play for, and why you love it.’ I just have so much joy playing this game. She helped me know it’s OK to show that.”
Jina’s impact upon sons Payton and Charlie is obvious. Her wisdom and aphorisms litter Payton’s speech. She taught Payton faith and strength and joy and passion and humor. She taught him to stare clear-eyed at challenges both as a player and person to allow a search for solutions.
“There was no sugarcoating,” said Tolle. “The reactions you always got were real from her. It was never, ‘Oh, you guys will get them next time.’ No, it was, ‘You could not throw the ball in the zone today — so go get better at it.’
“[That development mind-set] absolutely comes from her and my dad, too. They both were big with, ‘In order to get better, you have to know that you did bad — plain and simple.’ Own that, and then, ‘OK, now what do I do to move forward with it?’”
Jina’s obvious influence on her son’s outlook is part of the reason he’s a member of the Red Sox. In 2019, Tolle – then a two-way player and rising junior – took part in a showcase event for the top high school talent in Oklahoma. At 6 feet 5 inches and 220 pounds, he made an impression on Chris Reilly, then an area scout for the Athletics, by clanging the scoreboard with majestic blasts.
“I was like, ‘Well, this kid’s completely different,’ ” recalled Reilly, now the director of pitching at West Virginia.
But it was an introduction to Jina that was even more profound. A casual conversation in the stands turned into a deeply moving exchange about Jina’s cancer diagnosis, one familiar to Reilly, whose father had been stricken with the disease. An enduring friendship formed.
“The ability to sit down in a game and just meet somebody that’s different than everybody else — more pleasant, more effervescent, more refreshing — as a scout, that’s so unique,” said Reilly.
The two stayed in touch, even after Reilly was hired by the Red Sox in 2020 to scout North Texas and North Louisiana — a coverage region that pulled him off of Tolle both at Bethany (Okla.) High School and then when the player enrolled at Wichita State.
Payton Tolle pitching for Wichita State in 2022.Colin E. Braley/Associated Press
After two years as a standout at Wichita State, Tolle transferred to TCU as a junior in 2023 — back in Reilly’s coverage region for the Sox. After years of friendship with Jina, Reilly finally met her son that fall.
“We gave each other a big hug, like, ‘Finally we get to meet,’ ” recounted Reilly.
Tolle, who focused on the mound at TCU, emerged as a standout target for a number of reasons — his size, the unusual elements of his delivery, his competitiveness, a fastball hitters couldn’t touch.
But as the Sox lined up their draft board, Reilly made an impassioned presentation about why the team should place its trust in the Tolles.
“That was a separator. I was getting emotional talking about the player in our scout meetings, talking about his family and his makeup,” said Reilly. “I think the Red Sox took the opportunity to listen a little bit closer, trust a little bit more, knowing that in my four years with the Red Sox I never gave an evaluation of somebody’s makeup or background like I did [with Tolle].
“You know what cloth he comes from. [The Red Sox] knew he’d reach his ceiling based on who he is and his work ethic, personality and what he’s made up of.”
Jina didn’t live to see her son get drafted by the Red Sox. She died two months prior to the 2024 draft. But she was front of mind for Payton and Reilly when the Sox selected him with the 50th pick that year.
“She planted the seed, for sure,” said Tolle.
“I’m a baseball guy. I don’t necessarily think of fate or how our paths cross, but essentially that’s sort of what it comes down to,” said Reilly. “Things aligned.”
And so it is that on Sunday, Jina Tolle’s son will be in a Red Sox uniform. Before he takes the mound, he will likely send a text to her phone. After the anthem, he will look to the sky and, with a hand gesture, signal his love.
Even from her hospital bed, Jina Tolle signaled her support for her son, Payton Tolle, who will use the same gesture on the mound in honor for his late mother.Photo courtesy of Jill Castilla
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In doing so, he will honor one of her final wishes, and render irrelevant one of her last fears.
“I am not afraid to die,” she wrote on Facebook less than a month before she passed. “What I am afraid of is that my boys will forget me.”
Payton smiled and shook his head as he considered the sentiment.
“That, I think, is one of the dumbest things she ever said.
“It was like, ‘I could never. I’m going to tell every single person I can about you,’ ” said Tolle. “Nobody will ever forget an interaction with Jina Tolle. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.”
Alex Speier can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @alexspeier.
