If Your Birthday is July 25th...

...you share it with Billy Wagner.  A dominating lefty reliever best known for his nine years with the Astros and three with the Mets (I snapped this at Shea Stadium in June 2008), the Virginia native saved 422 games while punching his ticket to Cooperstown.  He'll be inducted into the Hall of Fame this Sunday alongside CC Sabathia and Ichiro Suzuki.

Just 5-foot-9, Wagner's 100 mile an hour fastball helped him stand tall on the mound.  The first left-handed relief pitcher voted into the Hall, Wagner also stands out as the first player from a Division III school -- Ferrum College -- to receive baseball's highest career honor.  And, in one of those "only in baseball" fun facts, Billy is naturally right-handed but, after breaking his right arm twice at age seven, learned to throw left-handed by tossing a ball against a barn.  That's the kind of determination that can turn a kid with a dream into baseball legend.

 

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