Rick Wolff’s résumé is about so long as a Major League roster, his disparate professions linked by an adoration of sports activities and a fascination with sports activities psychology.

He was an expert baseball participant, a university baseball coach, an writer of books about sports activities psychology and an editor and writer of books by athletes like Tiger Woods (in addition to enterprise figures).

In the early Nineteen Nineties, he turned the psychological coach for the Cleveland baseball crew now often called the Guardians, serving to them rise from the American League basement to perennial pennant contenders. And for 25 years he was the host of “The Sports Edge,” a present on the New York sports activities station WFAN devoted to serving to households navigate the more and more aggressive world of youth sports activities.

His final episode, which handled whether or not kids have been turning into much less all in favour of youth sports activities, aired two weeks earlier than he died on April 10 at his dwelling in Armonk, N.Y., in Westchester County. He was 71. His son, John, stated the trigger was mind most cancers.

Mr. Wolff started his quarter-century on WFAN after ending his stint as Cleveland’s roving psychological coach. Becoming a broadcaster was hereditary: His father, Bob Wolff, was a radio and tv sportscaster for practically eight many years, longer than anybody else, in line with Guinness World Records.

Over lots of of Sunday-morning episodes, Rick Wolff tackled weighty youth-sports subjects like hazing, the impression of social media and the chance of concussions, in addition to extra lighthearted ones like Big League Chew bubble gum.

The unhealthy habits of overcompetitive mother and father and the psychological well being of younger athletes have been motifs. In an episode final yr that served as a primer on sports activities psychology, Mr. Wolff stated that sending kids to compete with out mentally getting ready them was “like sending your kid to take a major test in school, but they really haven’t studied or prepared for that exam.”

His psychological insights have been solid within the crucible of Major League Baseball.

He began with Cleveland in 1990, when the crew was mired in one of many longest playoff droughts in Major League historical past — Cleveland had not made it to the postseason since 1954.

Cleveland was so infamous for dropping {that a} fancifully woeful model of the crew was on the coronary heart of the 1989 film comedy “Major League.”

Mr. Wolff labored with many younger gamers within the Cleveland system, which within the early Nineteen Nineties included future stars like Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome.

He typically traveled with Cleveland and its minor league groups and had a devoted dwelling cellphone line on which gamers may name him at any time. Whether they have been coping with a batting hunch, pregame jitters or anger points, he was there to listen to them out.

His counseling strategy concerned visualization methods, muscle reminiscence and pushing gamers to face their failures. He had some unorthodox views; for example, he maintained that setting overly bold objectives may very well be paralyzing as an alternative of motivating and that pregame nervousness may typically be embraced as a standard a part of sports activities.

Even although sports activities psychology was uncommon in baseball, Mr. Wolff stated on his present final yr, Cleveland’s gamers “took the mental side of the game seriously” and inside a number of years have been a “powerhouse in the American League.”

The concept caught on, he added, and “these days it’s the rare, rare sports team or professional or college organization that doesn’t have at least one sports psychologist on their staff.”

As an editor at numerous publishing homes, Mr. Wolff acquired a slew of New York Times finest sellers, together with Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad” (1997) and the General Electric chief government Jack Welch’s “Jack: Straight From the Gut” (2001). He additionally acquired a variety of sports activities books, together with Roger Angell’s “A Pitcher’s Story: Innings With David Cone” and Tiger Woods’s “How I Play Golf.”

As an writer, he wrote, amongst different books, “Secrets of Sports Psychology Revealed: Proven Techniques to Elevate Your Performance” (2018) and “Harvard Boys: A Father and Son’s Adventure Playing Minor League Baseball” (2007), which he wrote with John Wolff.

Richard Hugh Wolff was born in Washington on July 14, 1951. His mom, Jane (Hoy) Wolff, was a Navy nurse who turned a homemaker. His father was the broadcasting voice of the Washington Senators on the time.

In 1961, the Senators moved to Minnesota, the place they turned the Twins, and the Wolffs finally moved to Edgemont, N.Y., in Westchester County, the place Mr. Wolff grew up. He performed baseball and soccer at Edgemont High School, graduating in 1969, and attended Harvard.

As an infielder enjoying for Harvard, he started in search of a psychological edge however discovered little details about sports activities psychology. In time he tailored the visualization methods superior by the surgeon Maxwell Maltz in his guide “Psycho-Cybernetics.”

The Detroit Tigers picked Mr. Wolff late within the 1972 newbie draft, and he performed of their minor league system in 1973 and 1974 whereas finishing his Harvard bachelor’s diploma in psychology.

After enjoying within the minors, Mr. Wolff turned editor in chief on the Alexander Hamilton Institute, a now defunct group that printed instructional supplies on enterprise and administration. He continued to carry that job after he turned head baseball coach for Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., in 1978. He coached there till 1985, main the crew to a 114-81-3 document.

In 1982, he married Patricia Varvaro, who survives him. In addition to her and his son, he’s survived by two daughters, Alyssa Wolff and Samantha O’Connor; a brother, Dr. Robert Wolff; a sister, Margy Clark; and three grandchildren.

Mr. Wolff earned a grasp’s diploma in psychology from Long Island University in 1985. His guide “The Psychology of Winning Baseball: A Coach’s Handbook” (1986) caught the attention of Harvey Dorfman, a psychological coach for the Oakland A’s and one of many first within the main leagues. He referred to as Mr. Wolff and instructed him that different groups have been in search of psychologists. After chatting with a number of groups, Mr. Wolff selected Cleveland.

He bonded with Cleveland gamers by sporting a crew uniform and practising with them.

At the time, his enjoying days have been newer than the younger gamers he endorsed might need thought — simply the yr earlier than. He had performed three video games (and had 4 hits in seven at-bats) with the South Bend (Ind.) White Sox of the Midwest League in 1989, when he was 38, an expertise he wrote about for Sports Illustrated.

His South Bend teammates had handled him gingerly, till he fielded a grounder and hit a dribbler to brief of their first sport collectively. He wrote that after the sport one pitcher requested him, “Tell us, Rick, you must have known him, what kind of player was Babe Ruth?”

With that little bit of ribbing, Mr. Wolff knew he had made it. “I had become the target of some old-fashioned needling — the ultimate acceptance in baseball.”