‘Genuine ace’ Roy Halladay dies in plane crash
Two-time Cy Young winner and eighttime All-Star played for Blue Jays and Phillies.
San Diego Padres scout Chris Bourjos was at home in Arizona when his son frantically telephoned him Tuesday afternoon, and when he hung up, he was numb, still trying to comprehend what happened.
Roy Halladay, the finest player Bourjos ever drafted and signed in his professional career, was dead at 40.
Bourjos turned on the TV and looked at the news, hoping his son, Pete Bourjos, a major league outfielder, somehow was wrong. There was a plane crash involving an ICON A5. A single-engine, light-sport plane that went down into the Gulf of Mexico, 10 miles west of St. Petersburg, Fla., about noon ET. There was one known fatality. Then, an hour later, the victim was identified:
Harry Leroy Halladay III.
The baseball world knew him simply as “Doc.”
“I’m stunned,” said Bourjos, who signed Halladay out of Arvada West (Colo.) High School, with the help of Bus Campbell, for the Toronto Blue Jays. “I’ve known him for more than 20 years, and all I keep thinking about now were
his high school days. His dad was a pilot (for a Denver food-processing company).
“And Roy always talked about wanting to be a pilot, too, and buying a plane.
“I can’t get that out of my mind right now.
“I just can’t.”
Halladay, who retired four years ago and got his pilot’s license, was one of the last of his era, a genuine ace who symbolized competitiveness.
He puts his team before his own health every single day of his baseball career.
He was the ultimate teammate. “Words cannot describe what it feels like to lose a friend like Roy,” former Philadelphia Phillies teammate Chase Utley said.
“He was the ultimate teammate with a passion for being the best. I’m honored to have had the chance to compete with you, Roy. My heart goes out to Brandy and his boys.
“RIP Doc, but knowing you, rest is not in your vocabulary.”
“I’m sick right now,” former teammate Scott Rolen said.
“Doc was as driven a human being as I’d ever met in my life. I’m hurting for his family and friends. We all lost a good man.”
The Blue Jays, where he spent the first 12 years of his career, said the organization “is overcome by grief with the tragic loss of one of the franchise’s greatest and most respected players, but even better human being. It is impossible to express what he has meant to this franchise, the city and its fans.”
Halladay, a two-time Cy Young winner and an eight-time All-Star, spent 16 years in the big leagues, winning 203 games, and in 2010 became only the second pitcher in postseason history to throw a no-hitter.
“You wouldn’t know what Roy did because Roy would never tell you what he did,” Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said at the news conference. “And that’s the legacy of a great man.”
Indeed, it was Halladay who said at his retirement ceremony two years ago at the baseball winter meetings: “My goal is to try and leave baseball better than I found it.”
Certainly, he did all that, and more. “He was just everything you’d want in a ballplayer,” Bourjos said. “A great kid. A great competitor. He was that way in high school and all of the way through
“He was just everything you’d want in a ballplayer. A great kid. A great competitor. He was that way in high school and all of the way through his career.” Chris Bourjos Scout who drafted Roy Halladay
his career.
“He always competed, and even when we were signing him, he was fighting for every penny like he should, standing up for himself.
“My God, what a pitcher.” Halladay, who had a 203-105 career record with a 3.38 ERA, had a perfect game and a no-hitter on his résumé. He was the ultimate workhorse, leading the league seven times in complete games and four times in innings pitched, finishing with 67 complete games and 20 shutouts.
He also becomes the fourth baseball player in the last 45 years to die in a plane crash, joining Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson and Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle.
“I know there are people in his family that fly,” Nocco said. “That’s where he got it from. He loved to fly. He talked about baseball, and he talked about flying.”
A year from now, Halladay will be on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, and he certainly is a legitimate candidate to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum.
It would be fitting if his final resting place is in Cooperstown, N.Y.