Billy Wagner’s road to the Baseball Hall of Fame began with a humble summer in Auburn, New York.
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Before Billy Wagner became one of the most dominant relief pitchers in baseball history, he was a quiet 21-year-old arriving in a compact truck to begin his pro career in the small city of Auburn, New York.
Now a newly minted Hall of Famer, Wagner’s journey to Cooperstown includes a formative chapter in upstate New York — two hours west of baseball’s shrine — where he spent the summer of 1993 pitching for the short-season Class A Auburn Astros.
“I roll up in an S-10 truck,” Wagner recalled recently. “You know, there was a lot of doubt.”
Fresh off being selected 12th overall in that year’s MLB Draft out of Division III Ferrum College in Virginia, Wagner said he felt some immediate pressure. Listed at just 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, he was considered undersized for a power pitcher — but came equipped with a blazing fastball and something to prove.
“I’m definitely small,” Wagner said in a 1993 interview from his Ferrum days.
“But you find your teammates, you find the people who kind of care for you — and that’s something I found,” he recently added during a Zoom call before his induction.
One of those people was Bob Commentucci, the team’s assistant general manager at the time, who still remembers Wagner’s arrival vividly.
“He was a very well-mannered and polite kid,” said Commentucci, who now lives in New Jersey. “He struck me as very confident.”
Commentucci often looked after Wagner’s now-wife, Sarah, at the ballpark during games.
“He used to tell me, ‘Go up and sit with her. She doesn’t want to be alone,’” Commentucci said. “And make sure you bring a Coke with you.”
He still has a baseball signed by Wagner from that summer — a memento of a future Hall of Famer whose time in Auburn remains deeply meaningful to those who watched him begin his career. Wagner also inscribed the uniform number three; he wore that number in 1993 since the team’s smaller-sized jerseys came with single-digit numbers.
“When you see him up there on stage (on induction day) delivering his speech, you’ll be thinking what?” KHOU 11 News’ Jason Bristol asked Commentucci.
“Congratulations. It couldn’t happen to a better guy. Great career.”
Wagner was officially inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July, nearly 32 years after that first summer in Auburn.