In electing Wagner, the BBWAA has defined the modern-day closer as its own entity, with candidates’ credentials measured not against the whole of the body but against this specific peer group.

Is ex-Phillie Billy Wagner a true Hall of Famer even though he is considered a Phillies’ villain? Is Chase Utley on Cooperstown’s doorstep? And how about the Mets’ John Franco? Is he a Hall of Famer?

To gain entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Billy Wagner completed a climb few candidates have managed. Wagner, the former Houston Astros closer, attained the 75% support from voters required for election in his final year of eligibility on the writers’ ballot.

Billy Wagner received 82.5 percent of the tally from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, after he missed by just five votes last year.

In his 10th and final year on the ballot, former Astros closer Billy Wagner earned is place in Cooperstown, N.Y. in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Other bits of intrigue ahead of Tuesday's 6 p.m. announcement: Will CC Sabathia be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and is this the year Billy Wagner gets in?

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 trio of stars, each of whom spent part of their career in New York, will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 27.

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

The BBWAA recognized CC Sabathia’s prolonged excellence by voting the former Yankees left-hander into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

An online site that tracks Baseball Hall of Fame voting doesn’t expect the lone voter who did not check Ichiro Suzuki on his ballot to ever come forward.

At a Hall of Fame news conference, Ichiro joined the ranks of many people around the globe in wondering why he didn’t get that one vote.