The wild story of how Billy Wagner went from righty to lefty

A natural right-hander made a career throwing 100 mph with his left

January 21st, 2025

On January 21, 2025, all-time great closer Billy Wagner was elected to the Hall of Fame. A version of this story originally ran in December 2020.

It sounds like some sort of baseball folk tale, some ridiculous bedtime story your grandfather might tell you when you were a little kid and believed everything you heard.

A young boy, growing up tough in the southern Appalachian corner of Tannersville, Va., breaks his right arm — his natural arm — twice, before the age of 7. He somehow learns how to throw with his left hand, eventually reaches speeds of 100 mph, goes to the Major Leagues and becomes one of the most dominant pitchers ever.

Only this story’s even better because, well, it’s real.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m still pretty much right-handed,” Billy Wagner tells me over the phone from his home in Virginia. “I’m right-footed, as a kicker I punt right. I cut my food with my right hand. I’d probably poke my eye out with my left hand with a fork.”

Billy Wagner’s right-handed to left-handed transformation story has been told before, but definitely not as often as it should. And with the legendary closer now on his way to Cooperstown, what better time to see if there were any details he could fill in. We also talked to a New York City kinesiologist to see if anybody could do what Wagner did, or if, you know, he’s just a super freak athlete and we’re all mere mortals.

Wagner was always a sports-loving kid growing up — mostly football and baseball — so when he broke his arm playing football with a neighbor (whose name, Chip, was revealed during Wagner’s Hall of Fame announcement when he was asked about the incident) and once again while climbing some monkey bars, he didn’t want to miss out on any games or activities with his friends. He had this other arm just hanging there, why not use it?

“I think as a kid, you just have that natural instinct that you’re gonna do stuff. No matter what,” Wagner says. “Kids are so resilient and I wanted to play. I wanted to do things. I think that natural competitiveness of, ‘I’m gonna play,’ took over.”

“Yes, it’s called neuroplasticity: the ability of our body to adapt to whatever we put on it,” Dr. Eugene Charles, who pretty much wrote the book on this subject, tells me over the phone. “I believe we have this ability all throughout our lives. But the general consensus is that it’s even more powerful [when we’re younger]. Science says we have more pliability and neuroplasticity then … and also less self-imposed inhibitions.”

So, Wagner, unknowingly, took this newfound neuroplasticity and built on it. The middle-schooler began throwing anything he could find with his left hand — baseballs, footballs or even just rocks. Constant practice is also a key to changing dynamics in the brain.

“Yeah, by him just making a concerted effort to go with his left hand, you can re-establish neural pathways,” Charles says. “There’s the old nature vs. nurture. Nature might be the said foundation but, you know, nurture is really what develops who you are and what you can do.”

All of a sudden, as Wagner’s right arm was still healing, he found he was throwing harder and harder with his left. That arm became his good arm. He was breaking aluminum siding off the side of his house and striking out batters older and bigger than him in Little League.

“My dad always tells this story of how when I faced the big kids, I had no problem,” Wagner remembers. “It was when I faced the little kids that I couldn’t throw a strike. I didn’t want to hit them.”

He clocked his fastball in the low-80s in high school, striking out an absurd 116 batters in 46 innings (while also hitting .451 at the plate). He enrolled at Virginia’s Ferrum College to play Division III football, but coaches encouraged him to stick with baseball and his pitching career took off.

“That first year, I gained 40 pounds, I grew 2 or 3 inches,” the 5-foot-10 Wagner says. “A substantial growth spurt for me. I went from 78-82 mph to 92-95 mph my freshman year.”

The born-again lefty struck out a laughable (and still NCAA record) 19.1 batters per nine innings during one year in college. He struck out 19 during a no-hitter and finished a three-year career with a 17-3 record and 1.63 ERA. He was inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.