Billy Wagner coaches baseball at the Miller School of Albemarle, a 1,600-acre oasis in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Charlottesville, Va. It’s a private boarding school that feels more like a small college, he says, and his program is a three-season enterprise — fall, winter and spring — for kids who have every reason to dream big.
“Yesterday the rain was so bad that the school canceled afternoon practices, and they were like, ‘Can I come to your house and work out in your cage?’” Wagner said by phone last week. “And I’m like, ‘No, no, no — go home.’ But you can’t take their passion away.”
This is the life Wagner wanted in 2010 when he retired as the best reliever in the game. That season, with the Atlanta Braves, Wagner’s 1.43 ERA was the lowest in baseball among pitchers with 70 appearances. He averaged 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings, made his seventh All-Star team and helped Atlanta reach the playoffs.