Bonds, Leyland, Sanguillen welcomed into Pirates Hall of Fame

PITTSBURGH – When the Pirates hired Jim Leyland as their manager ahead of the 1986 season, the headline in the newspaper asked, “Jim Who?”

At the time, it was a fair question. Leyland never played in the Majors. He only had one stop in his Major League coaching career with the White Sox. He was pretty much an unknown, even to his players.

"We didn't know anything about Jim Leyland, and he didn't know anything about us,” Barry Bonds said. “He simplified everything. His expectations weren't high. Just demanded respect and for us to do our job.”

That partnership of Leyland and Bonds would prove to be one of the most successful in franchise history. Bonds began a legendary career in Pittsburgh, winning the first two of his seven National League MVP Awards. He was also the catalyst for a Pirates club that won three straight division titles under Leyland, the first chapters of the skipper’s Cooperstown career.

And on Saturday, they were reunited again, this time in Pirates lore: Bonds, Leyland and Manny Sanguillen were inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame as their 2024 class.

It’s not lost on the two fixtures of those 90s teams that they got this honor together, and fittingly so. During his acceptance speech, Bonds acknowledged that playing under Leyland to start his career was “probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Leyland is unabashed when he says that Bonds is the greatest player he’s ever coached, and that it was more special that they were part of the same class.

“Hey, we grew up together,” Leyland said. “He was a rookie player. I was a rookie manager. So we suffered some time to learn the game up here at this level, to learn what it took to play at this level. I needed to find out what it took to manage at this level. But we were always together.”

• Box score: Reds 10, Pirates 2

Bonds hit 586 of his 762 home runs with the Giants, but he acknowledged that he needed to take his first steps as a professional as a Pirate. When he was drafted by the Pirates, he told his father, Bobby, that he was excited because he knew the Pirates were rebuilding and that he had a great opportunity.

Until Saturday, Bonds hadn’t been back in Pittsburgh since presenting Andrew McCutchen with his NL MVP Award during Opening Day of 2014. He’s been a bit of a prodigal son in Pittsburgh sports history, but now he has a permanent marker at the center-field gate to commemorate his impact on this city.

"I was just shocked it was happening,” Bonds said. “We didn't have a Hall of Fame thing when we were here. We didn't know how Pittsburgh [handled something like this], so I was a little shocked. It's nice coming back to a place where it started for me.”

While Bonds and Leyland were able to achieve individual and team highs, perhaps their most memorable moment together was a 1991 Spring Training video of Leyland chewing his star slugger out. That stole highlights and went viral before videos went viral on the internet, but it’s not an indicator of how the two men feel about each other.

“I’ve often heard that sometimes 38 years of friendship is disrupted by a two-minute argument,” Leyland said. “But I think that’s pretty good.”

Leyland and Bonds were joined in this class by a player whose legacy on the field had wrapped by the time they arrived in Pittsburgh but is still growing off the field today. Sanguillen is a fixture at PNC Park, often camping out in his Manny’s Market and BBQ in left-center field, where he will greet patrons with a smile and then sign an autograph, take a picture or have a chat.

“I feel like I love everybody,” Sanguillen said on how he hopes to be remembered. “I get along with everybody. I loved to play for this team. That's my life, it's in Pittsburgh. I love everybody.”

That doesn’t mean Sanguillen is going into the Hall of Fame just because of the pork and pierogies. He was also one of the most accomplished catchers of his generation and was part of the Pirates’ 1971 and 1979 World Series teams. He racked up 1,500 hits in his career, which doesn’t even include the 11 he had in the 1971 World Series and the game-winning pinch-hit single in Game 2 of the 1979 Classic.

“Thank God that I came here to play,” a visibly elated Sanguillen said.