Why Red Sox draft pick Payton Tolle meant so much to former scout Chris Reilly
Jina Tolle's inspirational messages "always had some substance behind [them]," according to Chris Reilly.
Nothing could take Chris Reilly away from this conversation. Not the Oklahoma sun scorching his skin. Not the buzzing of the bugs that infiltrated the Stillwater summer sky. Not even the swings of the high school baseball players on Allie P. Reynolds Stadium’s on-deck circle about 100 feet away from him. Chris’s eyes and ears were locked onto this remarkable friend he had just made.
Her name was Jina Tolle. She was the mother of one of the high schoolers playing at Oklahoma State’s ballpark that day, a two-way junior named Payton. Chris was there to evaluate Payton Tolle and some of the other top prospects in Oklahoma for the Oakland A’s, who he scouted for at the time. He anticipated his primary takeaways from that June 2019 afternoon would be baseball-related when he first sat down in those stands. Jina had other ideas. She struck up a conversation with Chris and did so with one of the brightest smiles he had ever seen.
“Right away, I could tell her energy was different than most people,” Chris Reilly told Boston.com. “It was this charisma that just kind of drew me in.”
They chatted for a bit about baseball, their athletic histories, and Chris’s time with Oklahoma State until the conversation turned to a topic that bonded them. Jina had been living with Stage IV colon cancer for around three years when she met Chris, who lost his father to that same disease.
How that topic came up, Chris doesn’t remember. She probably made a self-deprecating quip about her lack of hair in between pitches. What he does remember was how engrossed he was in this conversation. The two strangers spent the next few hours in the bleachers conversing about doctors, her difficult treatment process, and their experiences with cancer.
“It was certainly unlike any other conversation I’ve ever had at a ball field,” Chris said.
…
Four hours later, Chris returned back to his house and greeted his wife, Megan, who expected to hear about the baseball he watched. That’s what she often heard whenever he returned from a scouting trip. Instead, Chris gushed about his new friend Jina and the conversation he had with her at Oklahoma State’s ballpark.
“The tone in Chris’s voice was different,” Megan Reilly said. “He was impacted so massively from one conversation.”
Megan dedicates a special place in her own heart for powerful mothers like Jina. She hosts a podcast called “Who Is Your Momma,” where she befriends and talks with fellow moms who have raised their children into strong men and women. When her husband eventually suggested that she interview Jina for her show, Megan’s eyes widened. What better mother to honor than the one whose story latched onto her husband’s heart?
As soon as she dropped the kids off at school the morning of the interview, Megan bolted to her home recording studio. She turned on her computer and dialed the phone number Jina gave her. Within a few rings, her guest answered. Megan could hear that smile from the other line. Her voice lit up her entire studio even though it came from a muffled iPhone greeting.
Megan hit the record button. She was ready to experience what her husband felt at Oklahoma State.
That’s how the conversation started, as Jina recounted the meeting at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium. And like her conversation with Chris that day, it didn’t take long for this interview to shift to cancer. Jina explained how she discovered she had the disease, how she approached it with her family, and how little she cared for the doctors who told her how slim her odds of survival upon her diagnosis were.
“Only Jesus knows the number of my days,” Jina told Megan. “I’m not gonna let [anyone] put that label on me.”
The idea of death never seemed to scare Jina. She talked about the many ways she’s learned how to live while knowing that she’s dying, and she even cracked a few jokes about the topic. What terrified her though was leaving behind a legacy of a mother she didn’t want to be. She couldn’t let her obituary read “she yelled all the time” or “she kept her house clean.” She wanted everyone to know how much she loved her boys, Payton and Charlie.
Jina attended as many games and practices as she could, even when her ailing body punished her for doing so. Each drive to school became life lessons for her kids. She even began abstaining from yelling at mistake-prone umpires or reckless drivers. Her voice broke at multiple points while telling Megan about her desire to be remembered as a loving mother. Every minute she spent with her sons cooking, digging holes, and cheering on their athletic endeavors was dedicated to showing them how much she cared for them.
When they finally hung up, Jina’s ebullient spirit vacated the studio and left everything inside it still and motionless. Including Megan. She spent the next few seconds in her chair sitting in stunned silence.
“It was like meeting the Michael Jordan of moms,” Megan said. “She was just a stud.”
The Reillys hear their phones ‘ding’ quite frequently. It’s usually the same text every time. A message about baseball for Chris, or a text for Megan regarding one of her many entrepreneurial endeavors. Not much variation in style or substance. That made the distinct notifications from Jina all the more satisfying to read. Words leapt off the screen. Vivid adjectives ran across the gray bubble, often to accentuate a witty, self-deprecating joke. Most of her messages ended with question marks that inquired about the wellbeing of their family.
These were the type of emails and texts the Reillys would receive from Jina every few months. They appeared on Chris’s phone ever since their meeting at Stillwater. She’d always ask, “How’s Megan?” or “How are your daughters?” His wife got those same messages once he introduced the two for her interview. Many of Jina’s messages and letters to them included a note about how proud she was of the Reillys and the family they were raising.
“It was never just a nonsense talk or email or text message,” Chris said. “It always had some substance behind it.”
The messages comforted the Reillys during what would be a time of change, as Chris became the North Texas and North Louisiana area scout for the Boston Red Sox. He would embark on an exciting new chapter of his life, but it would close the book on scouting Jina’s son, a native Oklahoman and future Wichita State Shocker.
Two years later, that book would be reopened.
Payton was set to transfer to Texas Christian University (TCU) for his junior season. Chris got wind of the news and reached out to his friend to celebrate. He could hardly contain his excitement. He would once again get the chance to scout Payton, someone he forced his Red Sox to have on their radar.
“We had known about Payton dating back to Wichita State,” said Devin Pearson, the Red Sox’ director of amateur scouting, “And then this fall, our scout Chris Reilly was just constantly saying, ‘Okay, this Payton Tolle guy is different.’”
Chris made the chance to scout Payton a priority. He already knew plenty about the type of person Payton was from the endless conversations he had with his mother. All that was left was to catch up on what he was doing on the field. So Chris would attend Lupton Stadium multiple times to watch Payton, whose imposing 6-foot-6, 250-pound frame and fierce competitiveness captivated the scout nearly every time.
After an outing in the autumn of 2023, he went to say hello to Payton up near TCU’s press box. When Chris meets players, he usually shakes their hands. That’s what he did when he met Payton for the first time in 2019.
This time, Chris greeted the lefty with a firm embrace.
“It was an immediate bond that we both knew our history without ever talking about it,” Chris said.
Another one of those games took place on March 1, 2024 at Globe Life Field. Payton pitched 4.1 innings of 3-run baseball for the Horned Frogs, but that’s not what Chris remembers most about that evening.
When Payton left the game in the fifth inning, Chris stood up and went down to the first few rows of the ballpark, right near the upper side of the walkway. That’s where Payton’s parents were sitting. Gigantic smiles covered all of their faces as he reunited with his friend for the first time since they met five years ago.
They spent three or so more innings chatting away in the bleachers, just like they did at Oklahoma State. They talked about their lives at home, Payton’s girlfriend, just about everything except baseball. Every memory recounted and good news shared brought joy to their souls and rekindled a friendship that never got put out.
Except for one topic.
Jina told Chris how much she wanted her kids to remember how much she loved them. It was just as she told Megan, but the topic was much more pertinent now. Her body was beginning to fail her, and she told Chris she would be lucky to make it through the spring. The harrowing thought of death was starting to become reality. Chris’s eyes watered thinking about what the Tolle family — and in a way, his own family — would look like without its matriarch.
The Reillys received a text message on May 4 with a health update from Jina, and there was no mistaking what this text was communicating. What little energy she had left would be devoted to her family. She knew it was almost time to go. The Reillys offered her words of encouragement, to which Jina responded by saying how much their kindness affected her family throughout her life. Even when she was hardly able to lift herself up, she was still lifting others up.
A few days after that text was sent, the Reillys found out that Jina Tolle had died on May 9.
“Even though you know it’s coming, it was still heartbreaking,” Megan said. “This was totally heartbreaking.”
Cardboard boxes bloated with toys, kitchen appliances and mementos covered the floor. The house looked spotless, save for all the dust that they now needed to clean. Soon, the Reillys wouldn’t need it anymore. A new home in Morgantown, West Virginia awaited them in just a few short months.
It wasn’t just a house they were leaving behind. It was a career, too. West Virginia University’s baseball team wanted to make Chris its next director of pitching and pitching personnel, an offer he accepted. Not that it was easy for him, though; changing uniforms from Boston red to Mountaineer gold takes a while to get used to. But he made the right decision. The less time spent away from his girls, the better. There wasn’t a chance he would let them start middle school without being as present in their lives as possible.
He couldn’t think about saying goodbye to the Red Sox just yet. There was no time. The 2024 MLB Draft was just a few short months away, and the Red Sox needed their area scout’s input for their pre-draft meetings. A certain TCU lefty named Payton Tolle came up in conversation. The Red Sox were well aware of his frame, performances, and his Big 12 Pitcher of the Year trophy. What they didn’t know was the type of person Payton was, and whether his character was strong enough to live up to his potential.
That’s where Chris stepped in.
He raved about Payton’s strong spirit, knowing whose spirit he inherited. He rhapsodized about the all support and guidance the pitcher received from the woman Chris met in Stillwater five years ago. Just about every word he spoke of the big lefty to his coworkers was of praise for him and his family. There were no concerns as to whether or not Payton Tolle would always give the Red Sox his strongest effort on the mound; Chris would not let his team have any.
“It’s hard for a scout to really know a player to the extent where he can put the highest makeup grade on that player,” Chris said. “And I think I could do that with Payton based on knowing his family, knowing him with more assurance than any player I’ve ever scouted.”
As Chris pitched this pitcher to his fellow scouts, his family kept packing boxes. Some of Megan’s businesses still needed to be closed down, but the moving process was starting off very smoothly. On one of those days, Megan received a letter in her mailbox. It was from a name she recognized: Chad Tolle. Jina’s husband. She ripped open the envelope and analyzed the thoughtful words in Chad’s handwriting.
He remembers meeting her husband at Oklahoma State. They wanted to get the “scoop from a scout” as to whether baseball was the right sport for their son to pursue, or if bowling or golf was the better fit. Chad thought his wife “irritated” Chris after the first couple of hours of conversation, but Chad said he hoped to “see her friend Chris Reilly” every time they played in Texas or Oklahoma, and he noted her excitement at finally getting that chance at Globe Life Field.
He also told Megan he had found some letters she wrote to his wife. Those notes, he said, were “meaningful and heartfelt” — about as meaningful and heartfelt as Megan’s invitation to join her podcast. She was so excited when Megan asked her to do so, and she thoroughly enjoyed every moment they spoke together on the phone. She has a “Who Is Your Momma” coffee mug that still resides on her desk. Jina loved their friendship, and he signed the letter thanking them for it.
“[That letter] is probably the most meaningful letter I’ve ever received,” Megan said.
The Reillys’ calendar soon flipped to July 14. The date of the draft. Chris found himself inside the house of West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins, with his nose buried deep into his phone. “It could happen,” his former coworkers kept calling and texting him as the Red Sox’ second-round selection started to approach. He stepped aside. The staff members and families he had just met had no way of fathoming the cacophony of emotions and thoughts clamoring in his head.
His phone buzzed one last time. And it kept buzzing. He picked it up and read the name: Devin Pearson. The Red Sox’ director of amateur scouting. His former boss. He accepted the call. Pearson told him the news. Chills shivered down his spine.
His wife was in Dallas packing when she heard her own phone buzz. She picked it up. Her mouth shot open and her eyebrows reached her forehead upon reading that text her husband just sent.
“We’re about to pick Payton Tolle.”
“I probably honestly sent some expletives back in a text about how excited I was,” Megan said.
Megan wasn’t the first person Chris contacted upon hearing the news. He stayed on his phone app and called Payton’s number. He let the phone ring until the Boston Red Sox’ second-round draft pick answered.
And they both burst out laughing.
They kept laughing. They laughed some more. For the next two minutes, the two men only spoke through laughter, because nothing needed to be said. A seemingly one-in-a-million chance became a stroke of serendipity with just a few phone calls and several moved hearts.
What else could they do but laugh?
“That was a really, really special moment and one I think we were all emotional about,” Pearson said. “It meant a lot to [Chris] for us to add Payton to the org.”
You couldn’t find two people more excited that Payton was now a member of the Boston Red Sox organization. Well, you definitely could. Once the laughter subsided, tears started streaming down their faces. They both knew that the happiest person of all couldn’t celebrate with them.
“I know if Jina were around, she’d be all fired up about the draft and pumped up about what may come for her kiddo,” Megan said.
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