When he takes the podium later this month in Cooperstown, new Baseball Hall of Famer Billy Wagner will most likely mention a few Virginia towns in his acceptance speech.
The former closer, who had 422 saves in the majors, grew up in Tannersville and Marion, went to high school in Tazewell and was drafted by the Houston Astros out of Ferrum College in 1993. He also lived in Dublin early in his pro career.
The long-time baseball coach at the Miller School in Albemarle County, Wagner, 53, will become the sixth native of Virginia to reach the highest level of the sport during ceremonies July 27 in the idyllic village in upstate New York. Wagner is the first product of the southwest part of the state to be so honored.
ICYMI
His 422 saves is the most, by far, of a Virginia native – and more combined than the next 10 closers on the list. The top three in that category all played high school in Southwest Virginia: Virginia Tech product and Radford native Mike Williams (Giles High) is second with 144 saves, and Roanoke native Al Holland (Lucy Addison) is second at 78.
Wagner and Williams were teammates with the Astros in 2001.
The first Virginia native who was inducted into the Hall of Fame was Eppa Rixey, who was born in Culpeper in 1891, grew up in Charlottesville and played at the University of Virginia. A lefty with Albemarle ties like Wagner, Rixey won 266 career games between 1912-33 with the Philadelphia Phillies and the Cincinnati Reds.
That was the most wins by a National League lefty pitcher until Warren Spahn posted 363 victories in a career that ended in 1965. Justin Verlander is second back of Rixey for wins by a Virginia native; the Giants’ right-hander and ODU product has 262 career wins as of July, 4 but was 0-6 in his first 14 starts this season and has also spent time on the Injured List.
“I feel like I was pretty easy to hit tonight. Frankly, embarrassing I didn’t do better than that,” Verlander told reporters after an 11-2 loss July 4 after he went just three innings against the A’s and gave up six earned runs.
Rixey excelled while playing for some bad ballclubs.
“He was one of a kind,” Clyde Sukeforth, Rixey’s manager with the Reds from 1926-31, told this reporter of the Virginia native several years ago. “He would break chairs in the clubhouse after he lost, and you would not see him for a few days. He was a Virginia thoroughbred. He had been around a lot, so he lost most of his (Southern) accent.” Sukeforth, who helped bring Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s, passed away in 2000 in his native Maine.
Rixey had another distinction – he was the first Hall of Famer that passed away between the time of his election and prior to the induction ceremony in Cooperstown.
He died on Feb. 28, 1963, near Cincinnatti, where he lived several years after his playing career. Another Virginia native, Negro League star Leon Day, befell the same fate as he died in March of 1995 – less than a week after the Alexandria native and long-time Baltimore resident had learned of his induction.
“That day was like happy and sad,” his widow, Geraldine, told this reporter in 2022 of the Cooperstown event 30 years ago. “I was sad because he wasn’t there to say his own speech. But his dream true.”
The rarity happened again recently for a third time as former outfielder and MVP Dave Parker, another 2025 inductee, passed away in late June. Making the acceptance speech for Parker, who led the Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series win in 1979 over the Baltimore Orioles, will most likely be his son, David, according to a Pirates spokesman. Other inductees this year are Ichiro Suzuki, Dick Allen and C.C. Sabathia.
Besides Rixey and Day, the other Virginia natives in the Baseball Hall of Fame are former Negro League stars Pete Hill (1882-1951), an outfielder/first baseman who was born in Culpeper; Richmond native Ray Dandridge (1913-94), one of the top third basemen of his day; and Jud Wilson, who was born near the Culpeper line in Remington, Fauquier County, in 1894, and died in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 1963 – just a few months after Rixey.
Dandridge was enshrined in 1987, with Hill and Wilson getting their due in 2006, after they had passed away.
Hill and Wilson are two of just 12 Virginia natives to manage in the Negro Leagues or MLB. That list includes Charlottesville High grad and former Cavalier star Mike Cubbage, who is in the University of Virginia athletic Hall of Fame and passed last August in South Carolina.
Wagner has managed at a lower level – helping to send several Miller School alums to the college and pro ranks.
That includes catcher and Clemson product Adam Hackenberg, who has reached the Triple-A level with the Chicago White Sox; pitcher Drue Hackenberg, a Virginia Tech product in the Atlanta Braves system; and infielder Tanner Morris, a former Cavalier who reached Triple-A with the Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays in 2024 before retiring. Morris played for Stuarts Draft in the Rockingham County Baseball League in 2020.
Other Miller alums include Wagner’s son, Will, a former infielder from Liberty University who plays for Toronto after being drafted by the Astros.
“I have been busy,” said Billy Wagner, prior to a Miller School game at James Madison High in Vienna this past March.
The veteran coach was trying to keep tabs on Will while juggling his own roster that included another son, Kason, who pitched in that night at Madison High in a classic contest between a public and private school won by The Miller School 1-0 in nine innings.
Miller assistant and Waynesboro High grad Terrell Thompson, who coached third base that game at Madison and played indy ball, said he has learned a lot about baseball culture and being a role model under new Hall of Famer Wagner.
An article in The Roanoke Times in 1997 noted that Wagner’s parents split up when he was 5 and he grew up in the home of several relatives, sometimes relying on food stamps. As a young boy he broke his right arm so after that started throwing with his left arm – the rest is history, and Virginia history.
Virginia Baseball Notes
- Madison High has produced four big leaguers: Mike Wallace, Jay Franklin, Jim McNamara and Bob Brower. That is the most of any public school in the state. Two other Madison alums have played at the Triple-A level this year: Bryce Eldridge, a former first-round pick, with the San Francisco Giants, and James Triantos with the Chicago Cubs.
- Turner Ashby High in Bridgewater and Madison both have a total of 10 when combining state titles and MLB alums – the most of any public schools in the state. TA has won seven titles and has sent Alan Knicely, Brian Bocock and current Detroit Tigers pitcher Brenan Hanifee to The Show, while Madison has captured six state crowns. Bocock was a pinch-runner for the Phillies in the last game that Wagner pitched, for the Braves in October of 2010. Wagner fanned all three batters he faced for his last career save.
- Willie Horton of Arno and Justin Upton of Norfolk are tied at 325 for most home runs for a Virginia native. Upton’s last season in the majors was 2022, while Horton played from 1963 to 1980. Both hit their last homer in the majors while with Seattle. Horton and Shenandoah native Wayne Comer, who passed away in 2023, were teammates when the Tigers won the World Series in 1968. One year, Horton did a clinic for Comer in Page County. “I really enjoyed it down there in Shenandoah,” said Horton, who moved to Detroit at a young age. Comer coached at Spotswood and Page County at the high school level.
- The most MLB steals by a Virginia native is 363 by Tony Womack of Danville. Second on the list is Fredericksburg native Al Bumbry, who had 254. Bumbry was teammates with Staunton native Larry Sheets on the Orioles in 1984. Bumbry ended his career with the San Diego Padres in 1985, and other outfielders on that team were Eastville native Bobby Brown and Gene Richards, who played for the Harrisonburg Turks of the Valley Baseball League while in college at South Carolina State.
- In Billy Wagner’s rookie year with the Astros, one of his catchers was Kirk Manwaring, who played for the Turks. Cal Raleigh, the current Seattle catcher with 35 homers through July 5, was born in Harrisonburg while his father, Todd, was a JMU assistant coach.
- Will Wagner was of three RCBL products on an Opening Day MLB roster this year. The others were Hanifee and Brenan Doyle, the Gold Glove outfielder for Colorado. Wagner played for Montezuma, Hanifee for Clover Hill and Doyle for New Market. That is believed to be the first time that has happened. There were three RCBL alums in the Majors in 1990: Staunton native Larry Sheets (Tigers), Waynesboro native Reggie Harris (Oakland) and Harrisonburg native Daryl Irvine (Red Sox). But Harris and Irvine were not on the Opening Day roster that year.
- Former JMU star Chase DeLauter, one of the top prospects in the Cleveland system, is at the Triple-A level in the Guardians’ system. He was the MVP of the RCBL in 2020, with Broadway.
- Former Virginia Tech pitching coach Ryan Fecteau, who worked with Drue Hackenberg in Blacksburg and parted ways with the Hokies after last season, landed the same job with Pepperdine in scenic Malibu, Calif., in early July.
- Among those slated to be in Cooperstown for the induction ceremony is former Washington Nationals coach and interim manager John McLaren, who was on the manager with the Mariners when Suzuki played there. McLaren was the Polish national team coach in late June during Prague Baseball Week in the Czech Republic. Former Ferrum coach Abe Naff also plans to attend, according to a school spokesman.
- Wagner pitched two games for the New York Mets in 2009. Others on the roster that year included Virginia natives David Wright and John Maine and infielder Daniel Murphy (Jacksonville), a teammate with TA’s Bocock (Stetson) at Luray in the Valley Baseball League. Wagner turns 54 two days before the Hall of Fame induction.
David Driver is a Harrisonburg native who played baseball at Turner Ashby, EMU and for Clover Hill in the RCBL. He is the co-author of “From Tidewater to the Shenandoah: Snapshots from Virginia’s Rich Baseball Legacy,” which is available on the websites of Amazon and Barnes and Noble and at daytondavid.com.
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