Doc a true pro all the way
Roy Halladay would give you that look. The ‘ don’t bother me I’m working’ look. That ‘ not today and maybe not tomorrow’ look.
It wasn’t just a media glare. It was a teammate glare. It was a coaches glare. It was an everybody in my way glare. He had a job to do.
And the look meant to inform you that you were interrupting his routine — and his routine was everything to him as a big league pitcher. His routine. His success. His early mornings. His running. His preparation. His consistent demeanour, every start, every season from the time he first returned to the Toronto Blue Jays.
His Hall of Fame like success didn’t change Halladay much. He was a straight line of a pitcher, a straight line of a man, who thought it was a waste of pitches to strike people out. He wanted to be more efficient. He wanted to use two pitches when five may have been necessary. He thought about things like that.
And in a sporting filled with professional athletes, he was the most professional athlete I’ve ever known.
The most professional. Maybe the most consistent. Maybe the hardest to get to know personally. You feel that especially now that he’s gone.
You wish you shared a laugh or a story or a personal moment, but Halladay wasn’t about that to the outside world. His family meant everything to him. The pitching coach, Bus Campbell, who first taught him to pitch. The scout that first signed him. The late Mel Queen, the pitching coach who changed his delivery from over the top to three-quarters. That was his family and his baseball family.
They were the insiders. Even his teammates had a hard time climbing over the fence, getting to know the person rather than the pitcher.
And now he’s gone and there is sadness almost everywhere. He loved that plane of his and to show it off and talk about flying and being just like his dad, a pilot. He loved to post the photos of his plane on Twitter, even if it embarrassed him just a little to do so. His baseball playing boys were his pride and joy. His wife and kids meant so much to him that when he signed one of those oneday contracts with the Blue Jays to retire in the right uniform they were right there beside him. Had it been after he secured his pilot’s license, he may have had the plane beside him, too.
And now gone, from an airplane crash, the details of which we barely know. Maybe we don’t want to know. We just know what Halladay was, and what he meant to Toronto sports, and what he meant to this country, and how different he was as athlete, person, competitor, symbol.
He left the Blue Jays after asking to be traded. Normally that makes for a messy ending in pro sports. A hero wants out. A highly paid hero is unhappy. But this wasn’t like Vince Carter quitting on the Raptors or even controversial in the way Darryl Sittler ripped his C off the Maple Leafs jersey. Halladay was getting late in his career. He had never pitched in the playoffs. He wanted a chance to win.
The Blue Jays sent him to Philadelphia in the first major trade Alex Anthopoulos made as general manager. The only thing remaining from the deal in a complicated way is Devon Travis. It wasn’t a great trade — trading away genius rarely is.
Halladay, who pitched a nohitter and a perfect game in Philadelphia ( both in 2010), never did make it to the World Series. He made five post- season starts in two years. It didn’t happen after the Phillies had already won once.
The remarkable number for in his time in Toronto was 76. That’s how many he lost in 11 seasons. That’s Hall of Fame before losing just 29 games in four seasons in Philadelphia. Clayton Kershaw has lost just 64 games in 10 years in Los Angeles, and some call him the best pitcher ever. Kershaw didn’t play in Toronto on flawed teams, with limited payroll, and occasionally wonky bullpens.
Halladay, much as Kershaw is now, was a crazy hard worker with an inner need to outwork all those around him. He was notorious for being first to the ballpark, during the season and in spring training. If he showed up at 5 a.m. and one of his teammates arrived at 4: 50, the next day Halladay would be there at 4: 45. It became an inner game of sorts. A game Halladay always ended up winning. He didn’t like losing. It didn’t matter what was at stake.
And, unlike so many of his world, he never wanted to be the story and right to his death, he couldn’t stop making headlines. It wasn’t just that sparkling one-hitter he pitched to begin his career as a callup. That was a story. It was the way he lost his way and found his game again in the minors. That was a story. It was all those years of Blue Jays greatness — he is on the short list of the best that ever played here, any sport. That was a story. It was the trade he forced without public scorn. That was a story. It was the perfect game in Philadelphia and the playoff no hitter. That was a story.
The next story was supposed to be Hall of Fame. It wasn’t supposed to be his death at the age of 40. And dammit, what I’d give for one more stare, one more of those Halladay looks, one more time.
HE DIDN’T LIKE LOSING. IT DIDN’T MATTER WHAT WAS AT STAKE.