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 as it turned out to be a pretty good one.

Baseball fans know what Harvey Haddix is mostly known for.  

From the deadball era, Jesse Tannehill is one of the unsung pitchers from that time.

Bob Friend played most of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates (1951-63), where he quietly had one of the better decades of the National League's Pitchers.

Bill Madlock is one of the more unlikely multi-time Batting Champions, as when you look in the annals of baseball history, Madlock is not on the tip of your tongue.  He should be, as this is a four-time National League Batting Champion.

Playing all but one game of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Babe Adams was one of the best control Pitchers of his day.

Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB. Once that is done, we intend to look at how each team honor their past players and executive. As such, it is news to us that the Pittsburgh Pirates have announced that they will be creating their own franchise Hall of Fame in 2020.

It was also announced their Steve Blass will be part of the Pirates’ inaugural Hall of Fame Class.

Blass played ten seasons for Pittsburgh where the Pitcher posted a record of 103-76 and earned a World Series Ring in 1971.  Following his playing career, he would become a broadcaster for the team, which began in 1983, a role he still has today.

It is unknown at this time whether or not Blass will be joined by others in the inaugural class, but we suspect there will be more.

The Hall of Fame will be located at PNC Park.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Steve Blass for this prestigious honor and the Pittsburgh Pirates for establishing this institution.

Al Oliver came to the league in 1969 as a line-drive hitter and for eighteen years consistently smacked the ball for hits.  He had over 2,700 hits in his career, and despite not being a genuine power hitter, he had a plethora of RBI’s.

Hoyt Wilhelm generally receives credit for being the game’s first great reliever.  History may eventually show that Wilhelm was not the only prototype for relievers as Roy Face deserves to be considered in that discussion too.

How many times 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 ballplayer, Tommy Leach.

In this era of the overpriced, overpampered, selfish athlete, we can’t help but like a player who was nicknamed “Mr. Team”.  This isn’t to say that Bob Elliott did not still rack up some impressive individual accolades as he certainly did just that.

You may have noticed that many sportswriters who have a Hall of Fame ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame drink a little more since the PED candidates entered the ballot. The PED question is now utterly unavoidable with the wave of eligible candidates, as the sport’s biggest stars of the last two decades are now eligible for Hall of Fame enshrinement.

It is not that our baseball list has not been controversial in the past. We already made significant revisions when we initially created a “1a” and a “1b” to account for the fact that both Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson are ineligible for the Hall due to gambling (though this was reversed in 2025).  A thought crossed our mind to create a list of eligible players who were caught (or suspected) of using PEDs, but there is one fact that cannot be ignored: these players are eligible for the Hall of Fame, and it is widely suspected that PED users have already entered Cooperstown.

Let’s get to the man at the top of this list:  Barry Bonds

It has often been said that Barry Bonds would have been a Hall of Famer before the period during which it is believed that he started taking Performance Enhancing Drugs. With excellent career numbers (both traditional and sabermetric) and three National League MVP Awards under his belt, the Cooperstown resume was already there. What has been speculated is that Bonds grew frustrated at the attention that Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire received during their famous chase of Roger Maris’ single-season Home Run record, and that had he done the same things (PED) that they did, he could have surpassed their levels. Whether or not that history is correct, Bonds’ already impressive numbers reached stratospheric levels, and he completely dominated the Steroid Era.

We don’t have to tell you all the statistics. A first look shows seven MVPs, the career Homer Run and Walks marks, and the top five career tallies in Runs, RBIs, WAR, and OPS, without going into great depth. We also don’t have to tell you that Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro (others tainted by PEDs) have colossally failed to earn the writer’s support for the Hall, and there is no evidence that they will change their minds. However, Barry Bonds was a better player than those two superstars, and if any player from that era deserves to be in, it is Barry Bonds.  Let’s also not forget that many of the writers who voted for Bonds to win the MVPs in his later years strongly believed he was juicing.  They voted for him anyway.

We would have no problem voting for Bonds for the Hall of Fame if we were ever granted a ballot, as evidenced by his selection at the top of our list. We would, however, understand if you wouldn’t.   As it stands now, we doubt he will see a plaque with his name on it.