SHOCK, SADNESS AFTER DEATH OF ROY HALLADAY
Denver’s own likely Hall of Famer dies in plane crash at age 40
The tragic, heartbreaking news spread like wildfire across social media Tuesday afternoon. Roy Halladay, the Denver native, Arvada West High School graduate, two-time Cy Young Award winner, eight-time all-star and likely Hall of Famer, was dead at age 40 as a result of a plane crash.
“It’s so awful, so crazy, I’m just trying to process it,” said Brad Lidge, who competed against Halladay in high school and was Halladay’s teammate with Philadelphia 2010 and 2011. “It was so sad to hear. He was a great pitcher, but he was even a better person.”
Halladay died when the small plane he was flying crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, 10 miles west of St. Petersburg, Fla. at about noon EST. Halladay was flying solo in an ICON A5, a single-engine, light sport plane. According to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, which confirmed Halladay’s death, the plane plunged into water that was about 6 feet deep.
The baseball world reacted with shock and sadness.
“I’m stunned to silence over the news of Roy Halladay,” former Phillies manager Charlie Manuel tweeted.
“We’re saddened by the tragic loss of Colorado native & former MLB pitcher Roy Halladay,” tweeted the Colora-
do Rockies. “We send our deepest condolences to Roy’s loved ones.”
The news quickly reached Alamosa, where Jim Capra is the head baseball coach at Adams State University. He coached Halladay at Arvada West and said Halladay, whom he knew since age 13, was unequivocally the best high school pitcher to ever come out of Colorado. But that’s not what Capra wanted to talk about most.
“Roy was an extraordinary young man, and the ultimate professional … the kind of person all young people should strive to become,” said Capra, whose 1994 AWest team won the big-school state championship in 1994, then lost to Lidge’s Cherry Creek Bruins in the state final a year later. “Roy did everything right, from the way he practiced, to his work in the classroom and the community. He was not only the most talented pitcher I ever coached, he was probably the hardest-working player I ever coached.”
The same month Halladay graduated from Arvada West in 1995, he was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays with the 17th overall pick of the first round. He was guided to the pros by his friend and mentor Robert Bruce “Bus” Campbell, a longtime observer of Colorado youth baseball and a scout for Toronto. It was Campbell who delivered the good news.
“I’m kind of speechless,” Halladay said at the time.
It was the beginning of a remarkable career, rivaling that of Goose Gossage, the only Colorado native in the Hall of Fame. Halladay will be eligible for induction in 2019.
It was not always a smooth road for Halladay. He reached the big leagues in 1998, throwing a one-hitter in just his second game. But by 2000, his mechanics were a mess and his confidence was waning. So he returned to Single-A to rebuild his delivery. In 2002, the 6-foot-5, 225pound right-hander regained his form and won 19 games, beginning a 10-year run of excellence that makes Cooperstown a likely destination.
The legend of Roy “Doc” Halladay III began in the basement of an Aurora home near Smoky Hill High School. Serious and determined, the 5-year-old kid threw hundreds of baseballs into a mattress mounted on the wall. A few years later, the family moved to Arvada, where the fifth-grader discovered baseball nirvana.
“The basement was about 55 to 60 feet long,” Halladay recalled.
There was just enough room for his father, Roy Halladay II, to install a pitching machine, and just enough space to hang a tire so that Halladay would have a pitching target. Almost every night from fifth grade through his high school stardom, Halladay took batting practice, then threw hundreds of pitches through the tire.
“All that time in the basement, that’s probably the biggest reason why I’m standing here today,” he told The Denver Post in 2002, making sure to credit his mother, Linda, and his father for letting him pursue his dream.
“The big thing about Roy was his work ethic,” Lidge said. “He outworked everybody, not just the pitchers. I remember when we were together with the Phillies, I was injured and I figured I would come in early, ahead of everybody else. But ‘Doc’ had already been there for two hours, working out.”
Halladay pitched for Toronto from 1998-2009 and with the Phillies from 2010-13. He won Cy Young Awards in 2003 and 2010 and finished his career with a 203-105 record and a 3.38 ERA.
He was known as a hard-nosed, nononsense competitor who took pride in doing things the right way. In January 2016, Halladay took to Twitter to tout his disdain at the idea of allowing Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds into the Hall of Fame: “When you use PEDs you admit you’re not good enough to compete fairly! Our nation’s pasttime should have higher standards! No Clemens no Bonds!”
“Roy was a quiet guy, kind of serious,” Lidge recalled. “But once you got to know him, he had a fun side and a good sense of humor. We kidded around a lot in the clubhouse and on the team plane. I considered him a good friend, and I think a lot of that was because we had that connection to Colorado. We knew each other since we were kids.”
The 2010 season was Halladay’s shining light. He pitched the second no-hitter in postseason history, leading Philadelphia to a 4-0 win over Cincinnati in a division series opener at Citizens Bank Park. He joined the New York Yankees’ Don Larsen, who threw a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series, as the only pitchers to throw postseason no-hitters.
Earlier that season, in late May, Halladay threw a perfect game against Florida.
Halladay is survived by his wife, Brandy, and their two children, Ryan and Braden.
“We are numb over the very tragic news about Roy Halladay’s untimely death,” the Phillies said in a statement. “There are no words to describe the sadness that the entire Phillies family is feeling over the loss of one of the most respected human beings to ever play the game. It is with the heaviest of hearts that we pass along our condolences to Brandy, Ryan and Braden.”
Halladay signed a one-day contract with Toronto in December 2013 so he could retire as a member of the Blue Jays, the team with which he spent the first 12 years of his career.