A Reflection on Roy Halladay’s Time in Philly
Philadelphia is not the most loved sports city in the world. We’re not kind, we’re not classy, we’re not humble But here’s the thing: Though we may not be any of those things, we love it when our players are. And there are few athletes in Philadelphia sports history that embody kindness, class, and humility more than Roy Halladay. When Doc passed away suddenly on Tuesday, November 7th, the outcry of love for him helped remind me just how special of a player he was and just how special of a guy he was. I took a few weeks to reflect on what this great pitcher meant to Philadelphia.
As a player Roy Halladay’s skill was unmatched. He was one of those guys where you were always routing for him even if he wasn’t on your team. When Halladay joined the Phillies in late 2009, after a trade from the Blue Jays, fans were ecstatic.We were adding the best pitcher in baseball to a team that had won the World Series a year ago and Philadelphians couldn’t believe it, we never get this lucky!
There were lots of highlights that year, starting with the perfect game he threw on May 29. For those who aren’t tuned into baseball history (I confess that I am not always), perfect games are extremely rare. It is a feat that requires incredible skill and concentration, something Doc had in mounds (pun intended), and he joined this elite club of 23 pitchers that have thrown one in MLB history. Want to be impressed even more? The Phillies only scored 1 run that whole game meaning the pressure was on Halladay to hold it together because one hit could’ve tied the game.
Then came the postseason no hitter. Say the name Roy Halladay to anyone within 50 miles of Philadelphia and this will be the game they remember the most. A post season no hitter?! The Phils weren’t playing some crappy team like the perfect game against the Marlins, they were playing a Cincinnati Reds team that finished with 91 wins that year. He struck them out 11 times. The second pitcher to ever throw a a postseason no hitter did so in front of a hysterical crowd of the 43,000 Philly faithful at Citizens Bank Park and “Red Doctober” was born.
These are amazing memories that Roy Halladay gave Phillies fans in just his first season with the team. Despite these glorious moments, and the others that followed, the highlights were not the thing I remember the most about Doc. It was the way he carried himself that stuck out to me. Every time Roy Halladay left the mound after an inning the camera would show him walking to the dugout, just like it always does before it cuts to commercial. I became obsessed with how Roy Halladay carried himself in that moment. Whether it was a perfect game or he just gave up two homers (an extremely rare occurrence), his face did not change. He was locked in. Didn’t look up at the crowd cheering and waving, didn’t look at his teammates, just kept his head down and kept moving. This symbolizes a motto for Halladay’s career: No matter how well he pitched, he was always humble and always hungry for the next challenge.
As a person Roy Halladay personified that same humility off the field. We often hear from the media about how modest a particular player is, but think for a second about how hard it must be to stay that way. Roy Halladay had the support of millions of fans every time he stepped on the mound. He had people telling him every day how we was the best pitcher in all of baseball and that he meant the world to them. It would be natural to let it affect you, but it didn’t affect Doc.
Remember that perfect game I talked about? A few months after the game, to commemorate it, Halladay bought everyone in the clubhouse an engraved a custom Baum & Mercier watch. Not just the starting lineup, everyone. These things run around $1,000 per watch and he bought one for people who didn’t even play that day! Engraved inside the box was, “Couldn’t have done it without you”, which is definitely a lie. He could have done it without them and most people knew that, but that wasn’t how Roy thought.
After his postseason no hitter, he was quick again to shrug off responsibility. He directed all credit to Carlos Ruiz, his catcher, because “he called a great game”. When he won the Cy Young trophy that year, Halladay made sure to have a second trophy constructed to give to Ruiz. When the Phillies re-acquired Cliff Lee before the 2011 season, the thing on everyone’s mind was our pitching rotation which we all called “The Four Aces”, made up of Roy, Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, and Roy Oswalt. Roy Halladay didn’t buy into this name. He made sure everyone knew that they were “The Five Aces” because he wanted to include fellow starting pitcher Joe Blanton, who was talented but not on the same level as the other four. This didn’t matter to Doc, what mattered was the team.
With his family, it was still them before him. Listen to what longtime Phillies second baseman Chase Utley says about Roy:
A guy who was the one of the greatest pitchers of all time cared more about what his two sons accomplished than what he himself accomplished.
Roy was a unique breed of person. He was a flawless role model. When I stepped on the baseball field, I tried to carry myself like him and I would bet that there were many other kids who felt the same way. It is difficult to see people like this pass away, but luckily the memory of him never will.
Carlos Ruiz sums it up in a simple, perfect way. “We lost a real special man”. Thanks for the memories, Doc.
