Former Houston Astros reliever Billy Wagner is headed to Cooperstown. Wagner managed to make the Hall of Fame on his 10th and final ballot, garnering 82.5 percent of the vote. He joins Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia in the MLB Hall of Fame class of 2025.
New York Mets catcher Paul Lo Duca, left, congratulates closer Billy Wagner by patting him on the cap after the Mets 4-3 win over the New York Yankees in 2006. Billy Wagner was unhittable as a pitcher and now he’s officially a baseball immortal.
Billy Wagner, a flamethrowing left-hander who was one of the elite closers of his generation, will take his place among the game’s greatest players of all-time after being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in voting revealed Tuesday.
Ichiro Suzuki had already cemented a strong, and likely everlasting baseball card market long before Tuesday’s almost unanimous vote for his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, headlining the class of 2025.
Suzuki's close call means New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera remains the only unanimous electee. Rivera received all 425 votes in 2019. Another longtime Yankees icon, shortstop Derek Jeter, came within one vote of unanimous election in 2020. Suzuki, Rivera and Jeter were teammates with New York from 2012-13.
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,
The BBWAA recognized CC Sabathia’s prolonged excellence by voting the former Yankees left-hander into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Suzuki is the first Japanese player chosen for baseball’s Hall of Fame, falling one vote shy of unanimous. NEW YORK (AP) — Ichiro Suzuki became the first Japanese player chosen for baseball’s Hall of Fame, falling one vote shy of unanimous when he was elected Tuesday along with CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner.