The Pecan Park Eagle

Through 9/03/10, Bill Wags is at 416 Saves & Hungry for More.

The guy is still amazing, After sixteen big league seasons, and after reaching the age of 39, the compact and powerful lefty has 31 saves on the 2010 season working as closer for the Atlanta Braves as one of the most successful relief game specialists in baseball history.

Billy Wags spent his first nine big league years (1995-2003) as a Houston Astro, compiling 225 of his 416 career saves for the good guys before going on to another 191 saves for the Philadelphia Phillies (2004-05), New York Mets (2004-09), Boston Red Sox (2009), and Atlanta Braves (2010).

In spite of his age and history with Tommy John surgery, the guy still looks pretty good out there at crunch time. His 31 saves for the current NLE division-leading Atlanta Braves also speaks in favor of him continuing his career into his 40s, but I have no idea what he plans to do beyond 2010.

I just always preferred Billy Wags to any closer we’ve ever had in Houston. He was cool. And he was powerful. He just blew it by hitters, frequently hitting triple digits on the radar gun, and putting out fires faster than they could even begin to smoke.  Had he been able to come up with a really effective change-up, he could’ve become the most devastating reliever in history. He was pretty darn good as he was. The sounds of Sandman by Metallica as Billy trotted in from the pen will always be our reminder.

For hsi career through today, 9/03.10, Billy Wagner has a career record of 47 wins and 40 losses against a miserly ERA of 2.34. In his 890.1 innings of total work, he also has recorded 1,171 strikeouts and given up only 596 hits and 295 walks. That’s pretty impressive by anyone’s standards.

Good Luck, Billy Wags, in whatever you decide to do next year – and thanks for a full harvest of great baseball memories!

In case you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, the last few days have really consumed my  writing time with obligations to a deadline on a major writing project.

I’ll be around.