Roy Halladay

Sports & Music

Moderators: AArdvark, Ice Cream Jonsey

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Roy Halladay

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Roy Halladay passed away last week. He was 40 years old.

Widely regarded as the best player in Toronto Blue Jays history, he was my favorite player. He was a throwback, capable of pitching 250 innings and more complete games than most teams threw on their entire staff. He was a decent guy and MLB abounds (well, there's a handful) of people that attempted to model their own pitching mechanics after him.

I was dating my now-wife when he threw a no-hitter in the playoffs against the Reds. I was listening on the radio in my car and we were going to have supper that night. I kept circling the block because Melissa didn't have a radio, not wanting to go inside till he let up a hit....

He was the best thing about the Blue Jays when he was there. We were as good as anyone when he was on the mound, it felt. One year he was going to pitch here in Denver. I bought tickets off StubHub but the game got rained out. I ended up writing a blog post about Stubhub's dumb refund policy where they asked me to take it down and then banned my account with them.

In 2003 he threw a 10 inning complete game against the Tigers. (My memory was that it was opening day, but it was not.) That has happened 5 times this century, it's rarer than a no-hitter.



I am going to be unfair to everyone by saying that one of the reasons what he did was so impressive is because he played in a division where two of the teams (the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox) had multiple important players taking performance enhancing drugs. MLB didn't do jack shit to punish the franchises and in fact gave one of them a break by letting the Yankees skip out of a $25 million payment to Alex Rodriguez. Roy just kept chugging, those teams filled with cheating a-holes were just normal guys to him. It wasn't like Toronto was going to go to the playoffs all the time if those guys didn't roid up, but you gotta give a man extra credit for pitching effectively against the best teams in the league. That were also enhanced.

My wife doesn't know a lot of baseball players but when I told her about Halladay she said that her good friend also went to the same high school and graduated in the same year. Which was amazing. That would have been great to know a week ago. Me and Roy through the friend of a friend thing could have been having a catch!!!! No, but it is funny that after 8 years it just came up. If I was a friend of a friend of Gianni Versace that would have been on my dating profile. I would have found a way to bring it up before I ordered the first gin and tonic.

RIP, Roy Halladay. I hope you're throwing unhittable cut fastballs and sinkers to my cat.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

User avatar
AArdvark
Posts: 16177
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 6:12 pm
Location: Rochester, NY

Re: Roy Halladay

Post by AArdvark »

Why don't managers let pitchers throw complete games anymore? I posted here last April or May where the pitcher was seven innings into a no-hitter and the manger pulled him. I was listening on the radio and that's when I turned it off.

P.S. Sorry about your cat having to catch for Roy.

THE
RATHER BE IN
PHILADELPHIA
AARDVARK

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Roy Halladay

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

There has been some analysis done regarding how effective batters are the more times they face a pitcher in a game. Most pitchers (this did not apply to Halladay) get less effective against pitchers the third time they face each other. So managers are pulling their starting pitchers to put relievers in.

Before that development, pitch counts were trending downwards each year. In 1974 Nolan Ryan threw 235 pitches in a game. (I can't tell if it was estimated or if they have video or if someone counted, but either way, ]url=http://framework.latimes.com/2011/07/21 ... 5-pitches/]that's a lot of pitches[/url]. The idea is:

- A pitcher tearing their UCL is catastrophic and most be avoided at all costs. They are lost for 12-14 months in a best case scenario.
- If we reduce pitch counts, that might help?
- What if we REAlLY reducce pitch counts?

These days I would characterize pitch counts to where over 140 is unheard of. 130 will get people tweeting anger at the manager even if they are not a fan of the team. 125 for veterans might be OK but I'd say most guys throw less and it's still considered a long outing. Here is a list of the number of pitches that Chris Sale threw each game this year. The most was 118. Now, is there any clear scientific evidence that throwing fewer pitches results in less wear and tear on the arm? Well, no, but nobody knows what to do.

Before "Tommy John" surgery (where they reconstruct the UCL) your career was just over. The physical freaks like Nolan Ryan were the ones that could survive.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

User avatar
AArdvark
Posts: 16177
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 6:12 pm
Location: Rochester, NY

Re: Roy Halladay

Post by AArdvark »

i suppose they have to protect their pitchers, but I bet it'd fill more seats if the pitchers could show off more. That kid...Uh, the good pitcher for the Yankees.( I dunno names) He was down in triple A for whatever reason and the RailRiders were playing the Red Wings for a three game series and the stadium was packed. Something you never see in a town like Rochester, at least not in the regular season. Last time they sold out was the night they changed to the Garbage Plates. Go figure.

THE
MAKE NOISE
FOR FOOD
AARDVARK

Post Reply