A chance is all Paul Bonfiglio asked for. An opportunity for the lifelong Belmont resident to lead a baseball team in an organized, professionally-run environment.
This year, the 2001 Belmont High School graduate and former Marauder varsity ice hockey and baseball player got his wish. Bonfiglio, 40, after three years as an assistant coach, took over as manager of the Westfield (Massachusetts) Starfires, a member of the wood-bat Futures Collegiate Baseball League (FCBL).
“Honestly, it’s a dream come true,” he said. “What else could you want? This is a beautiful work-life balance, and I’m tremendously grateful.”
After former manager Kyle Dembrowski stepped down, Hunter Golden, the Starfires’ director of player personnel, led the search for a new skipper. The process took about a month. The team started with 12 interviewees, narrowed the search to five, and then offered the position to Bonfiglio, known as Fig, whose rave reviews from former players set him above the rest.
“Your players are your best recruiters when it comes to getting talent, but they’re also your best references for a coach,” Golden said. “It’s so obvious how much he cares and how invested he is in it. He’s a guy that was long overdue to get ‘the keys to a car’ and prove himself.”
Early returns on Bonfiglio’s tenure look promising. With a roster of Division I, II, and III college players representing universities from across the country, Westfield led the FCBL in winning percentage through the first 16 games of the 56-game season.
Infielder Jackson Haker, who recently finished his junior year at American International College in Springfield, championed Bonfiglio’s hiring. He played the end of the 2022 season and all of 2023 with the Starfires, and Bonfiglio made an impression with his willingness to work with players one-on-one at any time.
“You’re never going to show up to the ballpark without him being there ready to help you with whatever you need,” Haker said. “Fig is really that piece that holds us all together. He wants guys to come in and leave better than they came.”
Bonfiglio lives in Belmont with his wife, Erin, and two daughters, 12-year-old Brooke and 8-year-old Leah. He has a well-rounded resume, both in baseball and with his day jobs. He studied journalism while playing baseball at Framingham State, worked as a reporter, then as a stock market analyst, and now as a student engagement specialist at Wayland High School.
Formerly the head coach at Wayland from 2018 to 2022, Bonfiglio was an assistant coach at Newton South High School. He coached a handful of elite AAU baseball programs and the Intercity Baseball League, runs a baseball consultancy business (including some work for the Baltimore Orioles), and once ran an online outlet dedicated to college and minor league baseball coverage, New England Baseball News. Heck, his handle on X, formerly Twitter, is @TheBasepaul.
Established in 2010, the FCBL features eight teams across Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Westfield joined the league in 2019, and Bonfiglio was the team’s bench coach, first base coach, and infield coach for the past three summers. Unlike the Cape Cod Baseball League or New England Collegiate Baseball League, the FCBL is a for-profit enterprise. In addition to the team paying for an apartment over the summer, Bonfiglio receives a base salary for the summer, a bonus structure, and a business commission. As such, he takes a professional approach, poring over game film and scouting prospective players in person as his schedule permits before the season begins.
“We have a lot of younger talent this year, like a lot of Major League Baseball prospects who are not yet well-established, distinguished college players,” Bonfiglio said. “It’s a big deal for me, and I’m super excited to have this opportunity to be entrusted with some really top-tier amateur players.”
It’s also a chance for him to showcase his coaching acumen for other jobs, perhaps in professional baseball or a major college program.
Some Belmont connections stay with Bonfiglio all summer. A few Starfires players come from American International College, which his late friend Brendan Grant, for whom the Belmont High School baseball field is named, attended before his tragic passing during a summer league game after his freshman year.
And when the Starfires play at Brockton or Nashua, he stays at home in Belmont. His family comes to many games.
“Any time that I get to see them come out to the ballpark is great,” he said. “At some point, I’d like the girls to be the bat girls. It’s a wonderful family thing.”
