DAVE KNACHEL

Virginia Tech Former major league and Ferrum College star Billy Wagner speaks at Virginia Tech's baseball banquet on Saturday.

BLACKSBURG -- Pitchers and catchers report to major-league spring training camps Monday.

Billy Wagner won't be among them.

The former Ferrum star, who made his big-league debut in 1995, retired at the end of last season.

Wagner, who spoke at Virginia Tech's baseball banquet Saturday, is keeping busy with his wife and four children in Crozet. So the ex-reliever said he doesn't have the itch to head to Florida for spring training.

"I don't have time to get the itch," Wagner said before the banquet. "My kids have kept me so on the go. I'm coaching ... baseball -- two travel teams, one Little League team. And right now I'm in the midst of helping coach a basketball team.

"I told my wife the other day that it hasn't even dawned on me that I should be doing something, which is kind of unusual for me. But I think it's a load off my mind, knowing I don't have to prepare.

"I could play another two years. I could play. But ... I wanted to be there for these kids."

Wagner, 39, decided last May that the 2010 season -- his lone year with the Atlanta Braves -- would be his last on the mound.

The Tazewell High School graduate finished fifth in major-league history with 422 saves, just two shy of tying John Franco's record for the most saves by a left-hander. Wagner struck out 1,196 batters, the most by a left-handed reliever.

"I came from nowhere -- 360 people, Southwest Virginia," said Wagner, a Tannersville native who pitched for five major-league teams. "To then make 16 seasons, to have a substantial career and to give me an opportunity to help a lot of people, ... I've done all right.

"It would've been great [to break Franco's mark], ... but getting 422 is OK."

What if his former manager Charlie Manuel of the Philadelphia Phillies called and asked him to come save some games for the best rotation in baseball?

"He has," Wagner said with a laugh. "No, you know what? I'm too old."

Wagner, who brought two of his children with him to Saturday's fund-raiser, had 37 saves last year.

But his career did not end with the World Series title he coveted. He strained his left oblique in Game 2 of Atlanta's division series with San Francisco and missed the rest of the series, which the Giants won.

"I don't think anybody wants to walk off the diamond like that," he said. "But for me, my fitting end was I played 16 years. I played for one of the greatest managers [Bobby Cox], for my childhood team.

"Playing for Bobby, ... it was like playing for your grandfather."

Wagner was an All-American at Ferrum, where he played for then-coach Abe Naff.

"When I came out of high school I was 5-8 and 135 pounds, blowing 84 [mph] and the only thing I knew how to do was compete," he said. "Abe Naff showed me how to use that frustration and that short man's disease to fuel the fire."

Don't look for Wagner to return to pro ball as a coach.

"I can't deal with the attitudes," he said.

Wagner is now able to take a more hands-on role with his education foundation, the Second Chance Learning Center in Bluefield.

"My ultimate legacy that I want to pursue is the kids, having these kids be able to go into college and help Southwest Virginia," he said.