Halladay will be 2nd Coloradan inducted
Roy Halladay will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday, becoming the second Coloradan to enter Cooperstown, joining reliever Goose Gossage.
Halladay, a two-time Cy Young Award winner who played at Arvada West High School, enters the Hall of Fame alongside fellow inductees Mariano Rivera, Edgar Martinez and Mike Mussina. Halladay led Arvada West to a state title in 1994 and was drafted in the first round (No. 17 overall) in 1995 by the Blue Jays.
A 16-year veteran, Halladay died in November 2017 at age 40 in the crash of a plane he was piloting. He received 85.4 percent of the vote in his first year on the ballot and is one of just 13 starters to get into the Hall of Fame with less than 3,000 career innings pitched.
Halladay was one of six pitchers to win the Cy Young in both leagues, with Toronto and Philadelphia, and was a master of the complete game at a time when the feat was becoming a lost art. He finished with 67 complete games, leading his league in that category seven times, while also tossing a no-hitter in the 2010 postseason and earning eight all-star nods.
Nicknamed “Doc,” Halladay also left a lasting impact locally. Longtime Cherry Creek High School baseball coach Marc Johnson, who coached Halladay in the summer, noted the right-hander’s induction “means a tremendous amount to Colorado baseball, and to the state in general. … As Colorado baseball was getting so much better and better in the 1990s, Roy was a tremendous ambassador for Colorado and the game here as it grew.”
There’s not a logo on Halladay’s hat on his Hall of Fame plaque, reflecting the connection he and his family felt with both of the cities he played in professionally.
“There’s no way to decide between the two teams, and I know we’ve spent the majority of our time in Toronto,” Halladay’s widow, Brandy, said in January. “Toronto gave us that chance, that base at the start, but Philly also gave us a chance to win and the passion that we wanted, and there’s no way to choose, so we decided that he’ll go in with no team.”