It's hard to imagine Hall of Fame pitcher Billy Wagner as anything other than an elite closer, but when he came up with the Houston Astros in 1995, the plan was for him to start.

In 83 career minor league games, he started 73 of them, pitching to a 3.10 ERA. There was only one problem — he didn't like it.

As Wagner told “The Road to Cooperstown” podcast on Tuesday, that's what he told former Astros manager Larry Dierker early in his career. Expand Tweet

“Larry [Dierker] gets hired and he comes down and we’re out playing golf, me, him, Verne Ruhle,” Wagner recalled. “He’s smoking a cigar and drinking some win and he looks at me and goes ‘do you like starting?' And I said ‘no.' He goes ‘do you think you could be a closer?’ I said ‘yeah.'”

That's all it took. Wagner explained why h

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