It used to be so much easier. Well, not easier -- not exactly -- but calmer. A relief pitcher learns to be comfortable with chaos, confident at the controls. Now, in his 10th inning on the Hall of Fame ballot, Billy Wagner is alone on the mound without the ball.
And oh, is it awful.
"You're sitting here and you can't control it," Wagner said by phone from Virginia on Tuesday night. "It's tough. I hate it. It's just not been a very fun experience, especially when it comes down to your 10th and final ballot. It's not going to be pleasant. It's a grind, but in a couple of days, this will be over -- one way or the other, good or bad."
Wagner, a seven-time All-Star closer from 1995 to 2010, will learn on Tuesday if he has reached the 75 percent threshold for election to the Hall. If he has, he'll fly to Cooperstown, N.Y., the next day for a welcome ceremony. If he hasn't, he'll be off the writers' ballot forever -- and likely back on the practice fields with the baseball team he coaches at the Miller School of Albemarle in Charlottesville, Va.
That's where Wagner was last January, when it seemed as if he might finally get the call of a lifetime. A camera crew from NBC Nightly News surprised him by showing up at school on the day of the announcement, and Wagner was too nice to tell them to leave. Sure, he said, he would wear a microphone and let them film practice.
The vote would be close; Wagner had gotten 68.1 percent the year before. Capturing the moment would make for great television, he knew, but he didn't count on missing by five votes. Imagine if one of his players had been rejected for a prom date -- in front of all his buddies, with countless more voyeurs watching on TV.
That's how Wagner felt.
"My gosh," he said, sighing. "You've got 30 kids looking at you. I'm emotional, I don't want to be emotional, so I'm fighting it back like, 'Well, you know, it's great.' You're saying all the things you need to say, but it was awful.
"So the ballot comes out, they take all their stuff and leave -- and you're still going through practice. There's no, 'Hey guys, we're going to take a five-minute break here.' You couldn't do anything. That was rough. I was so embarrassed."
Embarrassed? Really? Wagner, who pitched mostly for the Houston Astros, had more saves (422) than Dennis Eckersley and Rollie Fingers. He had a better ERA (2.31) than Trevor Hoffman and Goose Gossage. He had a lower WHIP (0.998) than Mariano Rivera and Bruce Sutter -- lower, in fact, than any pitcher with 900 innings in the century from Addie Joss' final game, in 1910, to Wagner's.
Wagner's career was a miracle. He is a natural right-hander who broke his elbow twice as a kid, then learned he could throw 100 miles an hour as a lefty. To be embarrassed is a twisted kind of reality, almost like a silver medalist at the Olympics: People recognize your greatness, but always wonder how close you were to the ultimate prize.
The difference here is that Wagner is still running the race, with hundreds of writers dictating the pace. He keeps a low profile ("I'm not a partygoer," Wagner said) and at 5-foot-10, he blends into a crowd. But when people recognize him and wish him well with the vote, they're extending a compliment by pointing out what he's missing. Wagner tries not to dwell on the awkwardness.
"You know they're saying it nicely, and I always take it as a positive when people think you should be in the Hall of Fame," he said. "But from the day you start playing sports, there's that constructive criticism you're constantly under. And so the hardest part is when you're done playing and you think you can take that deep breath -- but all of a sudden, you're blessed with this opportunity and you can't quite smell the roses yet.
"Because there's always that next thing: What's a separator?"
At first, few writers separated Wagner from the pack. The Hall of Fame controls the voting process and limits writers to a maximum of 10 selections. The 2016 ballot, Wagner's first, included 11 players who have since been elected, plus a host of boldface names who have not: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jeff Kent, Mark McGwire, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield and Sammy Sosa.
Of the 440 ballots cast that year, just 46 checked Wagner's name. But that 10.5 percent was enough to clear the 5 percent minimum to keep Wagner on the ballot, and gradually he climbed -- to 31.7 percent in 2020, 46.4 percent in 2021 and 51 percent in 2022.
Given how he started, Wagner concedes, it's an achievement just to be this close, trending up after hitting 73.8 percent last year. Through Wednesday afternoon, Wagner was polling at 84.5 percent on Ryan Thibodaux's Hall of Fame tracker. He has gained eight new votes from returning voters, and all 11 first-time voters have supported him, too.
Wagner is taking nothing for granted. He understands that percentages tick down when full results are unveiled. He knows that only one player (Rivera) has ever been a unanimous selection, which makes him suspicious of voters' motives. It is not a healthy feeling. But at this point, Wagner cannot resist following along.
"Looking at the Tracker, you almost feel like it's a personal attack," he said. "The phone is a huge enemy. I'm so excited about doing anything besides having any downtime. It's like, 'Practice? Yeah, let's practice 12 hours!' I'm doing anything and everything to give myself time not to sit in that moment where the negatives creep in."
If he fails to reach 75 percent, Wagner will eventually be considered by the eras committee, a 16-person panel that selected Dick Allen and Dave Parker in December. But Tuesday, mercifully, will mark the end of purgatory -- and this time, Wagner will be at home with close friends. He's earned the right to skip practice.
"The last couple of days are going to be nightmares," he said. "I mean, every day has gotten progressively worse. It's going to be a very overwhelming moment for me, or it's going to be a very painful moment.
"You're not supposed to get too high or too low, but you just sit with a big pit in your stomach right now, wondering where this thing's going to go. You're constantly fighting the buildup to that moment."
After a decade of deliberation, the moment is nearly upon him. It is time to end the game, and that's when a closer gets the glory.