Houston Sports - Billy Wagner

Billy Wagner

Born: July 25, 1971

Sport: Baseball (All-American, 7-time All-Star, Reliever of the Year, Hall of Fame)

Before we begin, I want to once again extend my thanks for another milestone number on the website.  Earlier today, this website notched hit number 250,000 - a quarter of a million!  Wow, it's incredible for me to think about reaching that number, and I want each reader to know that I appreciate whatever amount of time you spend on the site.  Hopefully you get something enjoyable and enlightening from it.  With that being said, let's pivot to this week's subject.  In a few days, the Houston Astros will celebrate their third inductee to the MLB Hall of Fame in the person of Billy Wagner.  The accomplished closer also becomes the first pitcher to wear an Astros cap on his plaque in Cooperstown.  So in honor of this occasion, I thought we'd get to know the man that Houston fans came to know as Billy the Kid.

Houston in 1999, when Wagner and the Astros moved to their new stadium in downtown

Born in rural Virginia, Billy Wagner was the son of Bill and Yvonne Wagner, who had gotten married the day the elder Bill (known as "Hotsey") graduated from high school.  Yvonne was just 16 at the time.  Life was difficult for the young family, as they relied heavily on food stamps and relatives to make ends meet.  Hotsey's tour of duty in Vietnam did nothing to solidify either his relationship with his wife or his financial situation, and despite giving birth to a daughter, Chastity, the couple decided to get divorced while young Billy was just five years old.  While the children were shuffled around between their parents, grandparents, and other relatives, Billy began playing sports like football and baseball.  Despite being naturally right-handed, he was forced to adjust when a neighborhood game of football resulted in a broken right arm at the age of seven.  When Wagner broke the same arm a short time later, he decided to learn how to throw a baseball with his left hand.  It turned out to be a good decision.  By the age of 14 Billy's cousin Jeff Lamie, an accomplished junior athlete himself, convinced the family to let the young man live with him, allowing him to have a measure of stability through high school.  Wagner continued playing baseball and football competitively, but despite a breakout year as a senior he was not scouted heavily due to standing just 5' 10" and weighing 170 pounds.  With few options, he opted to attend nearby Ferrum College in 1991, a NCAA Division III school that convinced him to stop playing football after one year and focus on baseball exclusively.

Ferrum College gave Billy Wagner exactly the opportunity that he needed.  In three baseball seasons, the young pitcher compiled a 17-3 record with a 1.63 ERA.  His ability to strike out batters was especially noted, as he set D-III records that still stand for single-season strikeouts per 9 innings (19.1) and career strikeouts per 9 innings (16.0).  After his remarkable third year in 1993, Wagner was named a first-team All-American and was drafted in the first round of the MLB draft by the Houston Astros with the 12th pick overall.  He left school and joined the Astros as a prospective starter, but while playing the remainder of the '93 season at the low-A level he displayed impressive velocity but his control was suspect.  After finishing his first stint of professional baseball, Wagner returned to Ferrum College to propose to his girlfriend Sarah Quesenberry, with whom he would have four children.  For the 1994 season, Wagner was promoted to high-A Quad Cities and continued to act as a starting pitcher, displaying somewhat better control as his walk rate reduced slightly but his impressive strikeout numbers that led all minor league pitchers across the country convinced the Astros to promote him again to AA the following year.  During the 1995 season he was promoted to AAA and even got a call-up to pitch for the major league club, retiring the only batter he faced on September 12, 1995.  The Astros gave him the number 13, which he kept for the duration of his career in spite of its unlucky reputation.

The 1996 season saw Billy Wagner once again begin the year in the minor leagues as a starter, but the Astros lost two relief pitchers to injury and needed to bring him up to plug the hole in their bullpen.  Manager Larry Dierker decided to use him exclusively as a reliever, and Wagner soon became the team's closer.  By the following season, his command and velocity had shown enough improvement that he solidified his spot at the back end of the bullpen, but his heavy reliance on the fastball wasn't good enough to keep major league batters consistently off-balance.  Despite high strikeout numbers he still gave up too many hits and blew too many saves.  Adding a curveball to his pitching toolbox was just the solution he needed, and in 1999 he was named the best relief pitcher in the National League while also making his first All-Star team.  Wagner had become one of the most dependable pitchers for a team that started to regularly make it to the postseason, and his 100+ mph velocity and strikeout numbers were among the very best in baseball.  He played through the 2003 season in Houston, appearing in two more All-Star games, but fell out of favor with the team's management when he questioned their commitment to fielding a team that could compete for a World Series.  Before the 2004 season began, Wagner was traded to the Phillies.  Somewhat ironically, Philadelphia never lived up to their potential while the Astros made the NLCS and the World Series themselves during his first two seasons away from the franchise.  Billy the Kid did make a fourth All-Star team in 2005 but had to watch his former team compete for a championship from home, despite setting his own personal best ERA that year.

Billy Wagner tested free agency before the 2006 season, signing a contract with the Mets that made him baseball's top-earning relief pitcher.  Despite continued individual success that saw him named to two additional All-Star teams, the team was not able to advance through the playoffs.  In 2008, during which his production declined significantly in the second half of the season, the team announced he had an injury that would require Tommy John surgery, which required at least 12 months of recovery.  Wagner vowed to return but did not think the Mets would pay him the guaranteed remainder of his contract when they could simply pay a $1 million buyout.  But the team kept him and Wagner did make it back.  After throwing two games for New York, the Red Sox claimed him off waivers and Wagner chose not to exercise his no-trade clause in order to allow him to be moved to Boston for the remainder of the season.  Despite appearing in a total of 17 games, 2009 became the only season of Wagner's career in which he did not record a save.  He declined arbitration with Boston and signed a contract with Atlanta, making his last season count as he made one final All-Star team and posted a career-best 1.43 ERA at the age of 38.  He retired with 422 saves and 1196 strikeouts in just 903 innings of work, making him a curious case for Hall of Fame consideration.  Only one left-handed pitcher in history had recorded more saves, and nobody had recorded his level of strikeout productivity - his rate of striking out 33.2% of batters he ever faced remains untouched.  But nobody in the Hall of Fame had fewer than 1000 innings of work in the majors.  During his first year of eligibility Wagner only garnered 10.5% of votes, which was enough to keep him on the ballot but far from enough to get elected to Cooperstown.  Despite his longevity, however, more and more voters began to recognize his dominance during his prime, and in his final year of eligibility he jumped beyond the necessary threshold by being named on 82.5% of all ballots.  In addition to being enshrined in the MLB Hall of Fame, the Houston Astros will also retire his number 13 this season, and he has already been inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame, the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, and the Ferrum College Hall of Fame.  Still married to his college sweetheart, Wagner has spent his retirement years coaching high school baseball in Virginia and running his charity, Second Chance Learning Center.  His son, Will Wagner, reached the major leagues for the first time last season with the Toronto Blue Jays just two weeks after being traded away from his dad's original franchise, the Houston Astros. 

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