Manuel, Wagner share ache of their native Virginia

LONG BEFORE LAST night's Phillies-Mets game began, Charlie Manuel and Billy Wagner, native Virginians, met near home plate. They weren't talking baseball.

They discussed death.

Manuel, the Phillies' manager, was raised in Buena Vista, about 80 miles northeast of Blacksburg. His mother still lives there.

Wagner, the Mets' closer and a Phillie in 2004 and 2005, was born in Tannersville, about 80 miles southwest of Blacksburg. He still has plenty of kin in the area and makes his off-season home outside of Charlottesville, about 150 miles northeast of Blacksburg.

As high school athletes, Manuel and Wagner were courted by Virginia Tech - Manuel, to play basketball and baseball; Wagner as a football defensive back.

"It's close to home," Wagner said. "Especially when you're from that state. Now, all of a sudden, [it goes] from being the state for lovers to the biggest massacre in the United States - that's tough."

Mets third baseman David Wright's brother, Stephen, 21, is an engineering major at Virginia Tech. Wright, 24, had a few hours of worry before learning Monday afternoon that Stephen was unharmed.

"It's tough, to be so young and be put through something like this," Wright said.

His brother will remain at Tech, said Wright, who tempered his relief with sympathy: "There's somebody who has a brother who is lost."

Wagner felt the repercussions of the massacre closely.

His mother-in-law is a nurse at a Blacksburg-area hospital. Wagner was on the phone with her Monday morning as soon as he heard the news.

"She told me, early, there were a lot more people shot than they were saying," Wagner said. "She was telling me the numbers [of dead] were going to increase."

Wagner could have been a Hokie but he opted for Division III Ferrum College, in Ferrum, Va. Manuel chose to sign with the Minnesota Twins. Both maintain ties to Virginia Tech, and both remain big Tech fans. Manuel attended football and basketball games as a boy, and Tech fell into his region when he was a scout with the Twins in 1982.

"I've spent a lot of time up there," Manuel said.

Yesterday, near home plate, Manuel and Wagner stared at the infield and shared their shock.

"Everybody," said Wagner, "feels the sorrow." *