It was the spring of 1993, and baseball scouts were flocking to Southwest Virginia to see Billy Wagner, a hard-throwing lefty pitcher for Ferrum College.
Bill Buck was in the right place at the right time.
After working as a scout for four years with the Baltimore Orioles, Buck had joined the Houston Astros in 1991 on a part-time basis. The full-time scout for the Astros in the region in the spring of 1993 was Brian Granger, and he was living in Dickson, Tenn., a town halfway between Nashville and Memphis – which allowed Buck a chance to see Wagner pitch several times and get to know his family.
“I did a lot of work on Billy Wagner,” Buck, who grew up near Cheverly, Md., and is a longtime resident of Manassas Park, said in a recent telephone interview. “I saw him a lot. I was personally responsible for getting his” pitching schedule sent out.
That spring, the Astros selected Wagner 12th overall in the first round of the MLB Draft. The Marion native and Tazwell High School graduate made his big-league debut two years later, went on to record 422 saves and last year was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
Hall of Fame cred
Wagner, the long-time coach at the Miller School of Albemarle, became the sixth person born in Virginia to reach the Hall of Fame – and the first from the southwest part of the state. The seventh will most likely be right-handed pitcher Justin Verlander, who is now with the Detroit Tigers and recently announced this would be his last season.
And Buck had a role in signing Verlander – though it didn’t go as quickly as it did for Wagner.
Buck became a scout for the New York Mets in 1994, and then two years later joined the Tigers, and he covered the Mid-Atlantic region for Detroit through his retirement in 2015.
In the spring of 2004, Buck saw Goochland product Verlander pitch several times for ODU. And even though the starting pitcher had a record of 7-6 for a bad ODU club, the Tigers took Verlander second overall in the draft.
But negotiations dragged on between upper-level Detroit management and the Verlander camp.
In fact, Buck was scouting in Florida that fall when he got a call while at a Friday night high school football game from Greg Smith, then the director of scouting for the Tigers.
“We are not going to be able to sign Verlander,” Smith told Buck.
But the Verlander family dismissed his agent, and Verlander’s father, Richard, handled negotiations and got a deal done before Verlander considered other options.
Verlander was the AL Rookie of the Year in 2006, has won the Cy Young Award three times, and his 266 wins is tied with Hall of Famer Eppa Rixey for the most for a pitcher born in Virginia.
Verlander has been on the injured list this season since his first and only start for the Tigers.
Hall of Famer Bob Feller, with Cleveland, also won 266 games.
Other big-leaguers
In about five years, Verlander will be working on his Hall of Fame speech.
And that must be a good feeling for Buck, who went into the Mid Atlantic Scouts Association Hall of Fame in 2016 during ceremonies at Ripken Stadium in Maryland.
“It is. When I look back on my career, I am very, very pleased with my record,” he said. “I signed 11 big leaguers.”
Besides Wagner and Verlander, that list includes:
- Outfielder Cameron Maybin of North Carolina, a first-round pick in 2005 who played in the majors from 2007-2014.
- Former Towson University star Casper Wells, who broke in with the Tigers in 2010.
- One-time Hickory High and VCU standout Scott Sizemore, who played in MLB from 2010-2014.
- Langley High grad Jay Sborz, who pitched in one game for the Tigers.
- Ex–William & Mary infielder Will Rhymes, who now works in the front office of the world champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
- Canadian catcher Max St. Pierre, who spent more than a decade in the minors before making The Show.
- Former Tunstall High and Virginia Tech pitcher Joe Mantiply, who pitched in the All-Star Game in 2022 while with Arizona and is now in the Toronto Blue Jays
- Rick Porcello, a New Jersey high school product who won the Cy Young Award in 2016 with the Boston Red Sox and recorded 150 wins in the Majors.
- Pitcher Artie Lewicki, who was taken out of the University of Virginia by the Tigers in 2014 and pitched in the majors for Detroit and Arizona.
Non-major leaguers that he signed were former Turner Ashby High School, VMI and Virginia Tech pitcher Ian Ostlund, who reached the Triple-A level with the Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals; Oscar Smith High and ODU product Anthony Shawler, who made it to Double-A; and JMU’s Nathan Doyle, who went in the 25th round in 2003 and reached Single-A in the Detroit system as a position player. Doyle is the last JMU player to be drafted by the Tigers.
“William & Mary had the most players of any school that I signed,” Buck said.
The first player he signed was Liberty University’s Rich Humphrey, who was drafted in the 57th round by the Astros in 1993 but still made it to Triple-A with Houston as a reliever.
Buck went to Bladensburg High in Maryland, just north of Washington, D.C., and got interested in scouting while watching the minor-league Alexandria Dukes. He wrote letters to many Major League teams and eventually signed on with the Orioles as a part-time scout.
Billy Emerson, a long-time youth coach in Northern Virginia, was as associate scout under Buck with the Astros and Tigers.
“The guy is a consummate professional,” Emerson told a Northern Virginia publication 10 years ago.
Buck retired in 2015, but the following year saw Brenan Hanifee pitch for TA. The right-hander was a fourth-round pick of the Orioles that year and made his MLB debut with the Tigers in 2023.
Hanifee – like Verlander – has also pitched for Detroit this year.
News and notes
Virginia in The Show
Fairfax native James Triantos got a hit in his first MLB at-bat for the Chicago Cubs on July 25, against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The infielder became the sixth native of Virginia to break into the Majors this year. He is also the sixth former player from James Madison High in Vienna to reach The Show – the fifth was Bryce Eldrdge, who broke in with the San Francisco Giants last September.
No Virginia high school has produced more big leaguers than Madison.
Departed coaches
The state has lost two notable baseball coaches this year.
Rob Hahne, a long-time youth and high school coach in Northern Virginia, died in May at the age of 57. The field at Westfield High in Northern Virginia has been named in his honor. He was instrumental in the advent of Capital One Park at Tysons Corner, where Bridgewater College played this spring in the ODAC baseball tournament.
Al Worthington, a former MLB pitcher, died in his native Alabama in June at the age of 97. He was the former head baseball coach and athletic director at Liberty University. He pitched in the World Series for the Minnesota Twins in 1965.
Former MLB first baseman Sid Bream played for Worthington at Liberty.
“I wish everyone had the opportunity to play under coach Worthington,” Bream told the AFP earlier this year.
Little League honor
The South County Little League program in Fairfax County was honored as the 2026 Carl E. Stotz Little League Community of the Year, named after the founder of Little League Baseball in Williamsport, Pa.
According to the late Nancy Jones, a historian and former teacher at TA, Stotz visited the Bridgewater Little League program in 1991 – the year before his passing.
The Bridgewater program began in 1954 and has produced several big leaguers, minor leaguers and Division I players.
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David Driver
