Miller School of Albemarle baseball coach Billy Wagner, known to the outside world as the best lefthanded closer in MLB history, is, finally, a Baseball Hall of Famer.
Finally.
“I don’t even know how to express it,” said Wagner, a native of Marion, in Southwest Virginia, who pitched in college at Ferrum, at the D3 level, in an interview with MLB Network after getting the news on Tuesday.
Wagner was in his 10th and final year on the Hall of Fame ballot, after coming up five votes short of the 75 percent threshold in the voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in 2024.
Wagner was named on 82.5 percent of the ballots cast by BBWAA members in the 2025 election.
A video has been making the rounds on the interwebs of the moment that Wagner got the news.
Through tears, all he could muster was, “Thank you.”
The weight of the long wait was evident for Billy Wagner when he finally got the call from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“Dreams do come true,” he said.#HallofFame pic.twitter.com/ovLCvTANdo— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) January 21, 2025
“From Southwest Virginia, I mean, when I think about what I represent, from Division III to Southwest Virginia to state of Virginia, it’s such a blessing. I mean, there’s so much that’s involved in this than just me. I mean, my wife pretty much throwing every pitch with me and being involved in every step through college and minor leagues. There’s just so much that I’m grateful for,” Wagner said.
His story is rags-to-riches – his parents divorced when he was 5, and Wagner and his younger sister, Christy, spent the next 10 years living with combinations of their parents, their stepparents, and their grandparents in the Marion area, before an aunt and uncle in Tazewell took them in when Wagner was a freshman in high school.
Born a right-hander, Wagner taught himself to throw left-handed after breaking his right arm twice at the age of 7.
A star at Tazewell High School, where he hit .451 and was 7-1 with a 1.52 ERA on the mound as a senior, he got no looks from MLB scouts or scholarship offers from D1 schools because of his lack of size – he was 5’5” and 135 pounds as a high school senior.
After setting several D3 records at Ferrum, Wagner, who would sprout a few inches, to 5’10”, in his time in college, was taken in the first round of the 1993 MLB Draft by the Houston Astros, made it to the bigs in 1996, and went on to become one of eight relievers in history with 400 saves, finishing with 422, a 2.31 career ERA and seven All-Star Game appearances.
His best season: 1999, when Wagner finished fourth in the NL Cy Young Award voting after posting 39 saves in 42 chances, a 1.57 ERA and 124 strikeouts while allowing 35 hits in 74 2/3 innings.
He held opponents to a .135 batting average and had 14.95 strikeouts per nine innings in that 1999 season.
Wagner also pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves.
His final season, in 2010, was with the Braves, and he was as good as ever that season – going 7-2 with a 1.43 ERA and 37 saves, and 104 strikeouts in 69.1 innings.
Wagner’s 1,196 career strikeouts are the most in MLB history for a left-handed reliever. His 2.31 ERA ranks second all-time for relievers, behind Mariano Rivera, and his 422 saves ranks sixth.
Wagner has been the baseball coach at the Miller School since 2013.
Among the alums of his Miller School baseball program is a kid named Will Wagner, yep, Billy’s son, who played college ball at Liberty, was taken in the 18th round of the 2021 MLB Draft by the Houston Astros, and made his MLB debut with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2024.
Will, a second baseman, slashed .305/.337/.708 in 86 plate appearances with the Blue Jays in his rookie season, with two homers and 11 RBIs.
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