A star athlete from rural Western Virginia is now enshrined with a plaque at Cooperstown.
And by next year, Baseball Hall of Fame relief pitcher Billy Wagner will also have a permanent marker in his hometown.
A native of Tazewell, where he pitched in high school, Wagner learned in January that he’d been elected to this year’s Hall of Fame class. A local hero, there are signs on each end of town celebrating his big-league career.
But a committee formed a couple months later was tasked with doing something more. Local attorney Brad Pyott was tasked with leading that effort.
“(It’s) such a larger than life thing that he had done,” he said. “And we felt that something larger than life ought to be done to recognize it.”