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Committee Chairman

Committee Chairman

Kirk Buchner, "The Committee Chairman", is the owner and operator of the site.  Kirk can be contacted at [email protected] .

Yes, we know that this is taking a while!

As many of you know, we here at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the 50 of each major North American sports team.  We have a new one to unveil today, that of the San Diego Padres.

Founded in 1969, the San Diego Padres have had their share of star players, but it has yet to result in a World Series win, though they have won the National League Pennant twice (1984 & 1998).  

The team has lost far more Games than they have won but has a unique history, solid fan base, and hopefully, unlike the Chargers, are not going anywhere.

This list is up to the end of the 2021 regular season.

Our Top 50 lists in Baseball look at the following:

1.  Advanced Statistics.

2.  Traditional statistics and how they finished in the National League.

3.  Playoff accomplishments.

4.  Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles not reflected in a stat sheet.

Remember, this is ONLY based on what a player does on that particular team and not what he accomplished elsewhere and also note that we have placed an increased importance on the first two categories.

This list is updated up until the end of the 2021 Season.

The complete list can be found here, but as always, we announce our top five in this article.  They are:

1. Tony Gwynn

2. Trevor Hoffman

3. Jake Peavy

4. Dave Winfield

5. Randy Jones

We will continue our adjustments on our existing lists and will continue developing our new lists.  

Look for our more material coming soon!

As always, we thank you for your support.

A Louisville Colonel for the first season of his career (1899), Deacon Phillippe was one of many players to be transferred to the Pittsburgh Pirates when the Colonels folded before the century's turn.  In Western Pennsylvania, Phillipe played the rest of his professional career, which turned out to be a pretty good one.

Phillippe won 21 Games with Louisville, and he would be a 20 Game winner in his first four seasons with Pittsburgh.  The Virginian's calling card was his control, leading the National League in BB/9 five times, SO/BB four times, and FIP twice.  He was a huge reason that the Pirates won the Pennant in 1903.

Late in his career, Phillippe was part of Pittsburgh's 1909 World Series win.  Retiring in 1911, he went 189-109 with a 2.59 ERA, 1.105 WHIP, and his BB/9 of 1.253 is in the top-twenty all-time.

How often is an athlete described as "small in stature but big in heart"?  This analogy has been used more times than we can determine but far too often, but it was an accurate assessment when describing the turn of the century ballplayerTommy Leach.

"Wee" Tommy Leach was a triples machine and one of the fastest ballplayers in his day.  Leach hit a few Home Runs in the Dead Ball era, though most were of the inside-the-park variety.  Leach was a power hitter for this time and often cleared the bases, or would himself get on base for the legendary Honus Wagner who batted behind him during his heyday in Pittsburgh.  It was fitting that it was Tommy Leach who would get the first hit and first run in World Series history.  Injuries would catch up to him by 1910, and he wasn't the same player, but Leach is a forgotten star in the first century of the 1900s.

With the Pirates, Leach had 1,603 Hits and stole 271 Bases.

When the name Bill Mazeroski comes up, the automatic response is "World Series-winning Game 7 Home Run".   Maz was a lot more than that.

Mazeroski played his entire MLB career with Pittsburgh, debuting in 1956 and staying until 1972.  Playing at Second Base, Mazeroski would be an All-Star in seven different years, collecting 2,016 Hits with 138 Home Runs.  Mazeroski never batted .300, but his lifetime Batting Average of .260 was respectable, though his .299 career OBP did hamper him, and did reflect on this list.  Still, nothing he ever did with his bat will be remembered as much as the walk-off Home Run that won Game 7 in 1960 over the favored New York Yankees, which is the only of its kind to date.

Defensively, Mazeroski stakes a claim as the best defensive player of the 1960s.  Mazeroski was an eight-time Gold Glove winner who also had eight years where he had a Defensive bWAR over 1.5.  He is currently the all-time franchise leader in Double Pays turned and Total Zone Runs.

Mazeroski declined in the 1970s, but he would help Pittsburgh win the 1971 World Series, making him and Roberto Clemente the only two players on the 1960 and 1971 Championship rosters.

The Veteran’s Committee inducted Mazeroski to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Pirates retired his number 9 in 1987.