Former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Brian Wolfe has died at 45 after what his wife described as a devastating and difficult health battle.
Wolfe died Tuesday, Sept. 15, his wife, Rachell Wolfe, announced in an emotional Facebook post.
“I’m sorry to write this but after a really really difficult and torturous battle Brian Wolfe passed away early this morning,” she wrote.
No specific cause of death has been publicly announced.
The Fullerton, California native spent three seasons pitching in Major League Baseball before building an even longer career in Japan.
Wolfe was selected by the Minnesota Twins in the sixth round of the 1999 MLB Draft out of Servite High School in Anaheim. He spent several years working his way through the minor leagues before eventually landing in the Toronto Blue Jays organization.
He made his major league debut on May 30, 2007, against the New York Yankees.
That rookie season became the strongest of his MLB career, with Wolfe making 38 relief appearances and posting a 2.98 ERA.
Across three seasons with Toronto from 2007 through 2009, the right-hander appeared in 72 games, compiling a 5-5 record with a 3.81 ERA and 47 strikeouts.
But Wolfe’s baseball story was far from over.
After leaving Major League Baseball, he headed to Japan in 2010 and reinvented himself as a starting pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball.
Wolfe initially joined the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, where he became a regular part of the rotation.
From 2010 through 2013, he started 77 games for the Fighters and won 35 of them. His best stretch included a 12-win season in 2011 and a 10-win campaign in 2012.
His final season with the Fighters also happened to be Shohei Ohtani’s first professional season.
Wolfe and Ohtani were teammates in 2013, when the future MLB superstar was just beginning his unusual career as both a pitcher and hitter.
Wolfe later recalled that the Fighters had committed to allowing Ohtani to pursue both roles, something that was considered highly unconventional at the time.
After leaving the Fighters, Wolfe also pitched for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and Saitama Seibu Lions before retiring following the 2018 season at age 37.
He finished his Japanese career with a 56-40 record and a 3.43 ERA.
Former MLB outfielder Brandon Barnes, who described Wolfe as one of his closest friends and a mentor, also spoke publicly about the loss Wednesday.
Watch Brandon Barnes’ tribute to Brian Wolfe on Facebook
“I just lost one of my best friends and a mentor,” Barnes said in the video.
Wolfe’s career spanned nearly two decades of professional baseball across the United States and Japan, taking him from a sixth-round high school draft pick to the major leagues and eventually to a lengthy second chapter overseas.
His family has not publicly disclosed further details surrounding his illness or death.
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