In electing Wagner, the BBWAA has defined the modern-day closer as its own entity, with candidates’ credentials measured not against the whole of the body but against this specific peer group.

Billy Wagner received 82.5 percent of the tally from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, after he missed by just five votes last year.

Miller School baseball coach Billy Wagner, known to the outside world as the best lefthanded closer in MLB history, is a Baseball Hall of Famer.

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To gain entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Billy Wagner completed a climb few candidates have managed. Wagner, the former Houston Astros closer, attained the 75% support from voters required for election in his final year of eligibility on the writers’ ballot.

In his 10th and final year on the ballot, former Astros closer Billy Wagner earned is place in Cooperstown, N.Y. in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

After falling five votes short of Baseball Hall of Fame last year, Billy Wagner is hopeful on his final year on ballot.

Other bits of intrigue ahead of Tuesday's 6 p.m. announcement: Will CC Sabathia be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and is this the year Billy Wagner gets in?

In Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner, the Baseball Writers Association delivered quite an eclectic trifecta to Cooperstown on Tuesday. The first Japanese player ever elected to the Hall of Fame,

while Billy Wagner made the most of his 10th and final appearance on the ballot, clearing the 75% barrier to inclusion by earning 325 of 394 votes. Suzuki nearly joined Mariano Rivera – a man tasked with pitching just one inning in almost all of his ...

Ichiro Suzuki missed unanimous election to the Baseball Hall of Fame by one vote Tuesday night when he headlined a three-player class selected by the 394 voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

The trio of stars, each of whom spent part of their career in New York, will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 27.