Yesterday, August 8th, I made the trek to Philadelphia with a couple of friends to witness a great moment in Philadelphia Phillies history: the retirement of the number 34 in honor of the late, great Hall-of-Famer Roy Halladay.
It was a bittersweet day since Roy tragically died in 2017 when he crashed his airplane into the Gulf of Mexico at the age of 40. Yet the spirit of “Doc” Halladay was alive and well in Citizen’s Bank Park, electrifying a crowd of 39,000+ fans who loved Doc and perhaps inspiring Phillies ace Zack Wheeler to deliver one of the best pitching performances seen in Philadelphia since the days when Halladay himself ruled the mound.
This ceremony was originally scheduled to take place on May 29th 2020, the tenth anniversary of Doc’s perfect game. As soon it was announced we grabbed tickets right away. My friends and I loved Doc and traveled to Philly several times in his relatively short stint with the team to see him pitch. Of course 2020 ended up being a year from hell and the event was cancelled. Boooo!
Fortunately with fans once again being allowed at the ballpark, it was announced this past June the ceremony was to be re-scheduled for Sunday August 8th 2021. Yaaay! This was an event I didn’t want to miss because Roy Hallady is one of my all-time favorite Phillies.
Roy Halladay made it to the Major Leagues at the age of 21 in 1998 with the Toronto Blue Jays. It took him a couple of seasons to find his inner ace, but once he did he dominated the American League. In 2003 Doc won the A.L. Cy Young award by posting a record of 22-7 with a 3.25 era. Despite Doc’ s dominance the Blue Jays at best were a mediocre team during his 12 years with the club, not making the playoffs even once.
By 2009, Halladay was ready to move on to a team that could contend for a championship and the Blue Jays were ready to accommodate him to start a re-build. Luckily for me, my Philadelphia Phillies were such a contender and they needed very badly a front line ace of a pitcher. As the season moved into the summer, the rumors were flying that Philly was in talks with Toronto to bring Doc to Philadelphia.
By sheer luck, the Blue Jays were making a rare interleague appearance in Philadelphia that season. Roy Halladay was scheduled to take the ball against the Phillies on June 18th, 2009 at Citizen’s Bank Park. Wanting to get a first-hand look at what we assumed was going to be our future ace, my friend Rick and I took off work and traveled down to Philly to catch the game.
We should have went to work. Halladay was sick and missed the start. To make matters even worse the Phillies lost the game 8-7. Not a good day.
Things got even worse when the Blue Jays played hardball with the Phillies and the two teams couldn’t make a deal before the trading deadline. The Phillies rebounded by trading for Cliff Lee, who led the team to the World Series for a second straight season. That was great, but the Philly fan base was still deflated when we failed to land the best pitcher in baseball.
Things changed in the 2009 offseason. The Blue Jays and Phillies resumed their prior negotiations and on December 16th Phillies fans got an early Christmas present: Roy “Doc” Halladay was officially coming to Philadelphia. Hooray!
Doc wasted little time in showing he was going to dominate the National League as easily as he did the American League. On May 29th Roy Halladay pitched the 20th perfect game in MLB history against the Florida Marlins with this beautiful statline: 9 IP 0 Hits 0 Walks 11 strikeouts.
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It was a glorious day in what was to become a glorious season for Roy Halladay. On September 21, 2010 Doc took the ball against the Atlanta Braves in search for his twentieth win of the season. No Phillies pitcher had won at least 20 games in a season since 1982 when Steve Carlton did it for the last time in his career. This was history I had to see in person. For the first (and so far only) time I paid above face value for a ticket to a baseball game. $60 for a $30 ticket. Damn those tickets were hot!
Doc didn’t disappoint the sold out crowd, leading the Phillies to 5-3 victory over the Braves to win 20 games in a season for the third time in his career. He tacked on one more win to finish the 2010 season with a record of 21-10 with a 2.44 era and 219 strikeouts. He led the majors in wins, complete games and shutouts while capturing all the votes to become the unanimous winner of the 2010 N.L. Cy Young Award.
Roy Halladay was everything the Phillies fans dreamed he would be. Little did we know that as the playoffs were about to start, Doc was preparing to make a little more history in the postseason.
After 13 seasons, Roy Halladay got to experience postseason baseball for the first time. The Phillies kicked off the playoffs by facing the Cincinnati Reds, who won 91 games to capture the N.L. Central Division while leading the N.L. in runs scored. Led by 2010 N.L. MVP Joey Votto, the Reds were not pushovers.
Doc Halladay wasn’t fazed. He had waited a long time for this moment. On October 6th, Doc took the mound against Cincinnati in Game One of the N.L. Division Series in Philadelphia.
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A few hours later Doc Halladay walked off the mound after becoming the second pitcher in MLB history to throw a no-hitter in the playoffs. He threw a phucking no-hitter in his first ever playoff start! One walk to Jay Bruce was the only mistake he made all day. It was amazing. I laughed, I cried, I shit my pants. Alright I’m kidding a little bit here, I didn’t cry.
The Phillies swept the Reds in three games and seemed destined to return to the World Series for a third straight season. Sadly it didn’t work out that way. Doc showed us he was a human after all by losing the first game of the N.L. Championship series 4-3 to the San Francisco Giants. He rebounded to win Game 5 4-2, but the Phillies as a team were spent and the Giants won the series.
After falling short in 2010, the Phillies went all in for 2011 to bring the World Series title back to Philadelphia. They added pitchers Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt to team up with Halladay.
Doc had another great season in 2011 (19-6, 2.35 era, 220 strikeouts) and the Phillies set a franchise record with 102 victories. The Phillies were the favorites to win the National League pennant. They kicked off the playoffs facing the St. Louis Cardinals and Halladay was handed the ball to start Game One. He delivered a fine performance (8 IP, 3 earned runs, 8 strikeouts, 1 walk) as the Phils walloped the redbirds 11-6.
However, things went downhill from there. The Phillies offense began to sputter and the Cardinals won two of the next three games. A deciding Game Five was to be played in Philadelphia. There was no question as to who was going to take the ball for the Phillies. With the season’s fate on the line, they turned to the ace on a staff of aces Roy Halladay.
As he almost always did, Halladay pitched great against the Cardinals. Unfortunately the Phillies needed him to be perfect, not just great. Doc only gave up 1 run in 8 innings, but the Phillies offense was shutout and the Phils lost 1-0. It was soul crushing. The greatest regular season in Philly history culminated in getting booted in the first round of the playoffs.
We still had hope for the Phillies in 2012, but we didn’t realize when the season started that a lifetime of throwing baseballs was about to catch up to Roy Halladay.
Roy started on opening day 2012 for the Phils, still the ace among the aces, and pitched 8 shutout innings to earn a 1-0 win against the Pirates. It was the only time the Phillies would be in first place all season.
Halladay was his usual awesome self in April, but by May it was becoming obvious something was off with his health. He had shoulder problems and would go on to spend two months on the disabled list. He returned by the end of July, but he was never the same. He finished the 2012 season with an 11-8 record and an ugly 4.49 era. Normally a workhorse who led MLB in complete games seven times, Halladay failed to pitch even one complete game in his 25 starts.
One of Halladays great traits was that he was truly a warrior on the mound. He rehabbed after the 2012 season to try and comeback to be the ace pitcher once again. It didn’t happen. Battling injuries the entire year of 2013, Halladay could only make 13 starts, finishing with a 4-5 record and an even uglier 6.82 era. The writing was on the wall and Halladay retired after the 2013 season.
Sadly Doc’s retirement was a short one. Four years after leaving baseball, Roy Halladay was killed when the plane he was piloting crashed into the Gulf of Mexico as he was performing stunt maneuvers. The baseball world was stunned, personally it was like getting punched in the gut. This great warrior on the mound wouldn’t be around to accept the career accolades he earned.
Doc spent 12 of his 16 years in the majors with the Toronto Blue Jays, but Phillies fans like myself have hijacked him from the Jays. Even though he only spent four years with the Phillies, we consider him one of our own. When he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously, his family decided his cap wouldn’t sport a logo. They couldn’t choose between Toronto and Philadelphia. I’m sure that pissed a lot of Blue Jays fan off, but to hell with them. Consider it Philly’s revenge for Joe Carter’s home run.
All of these events led to August 8th 2021. The Phillies held a wonderful ceremony to honor the legacy of Roy Halladay by retiring his #34. The Blue Jays had retired the #32 from his Toronto days in 2018.
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The ceremony was run by Phillies PA announcer Dan Baker. Raul Ibanez represented Doc’s Philly teammates by giving a speech to say how special Halladay was to everyone who shared that locker room. Ibanez said after Roy pitched his perfect game, he bought everybody on the club a watch with the inscription “We did this together.”
Ibanez also told a story about Doc’s postseason no-hitter. He said when Halladay came into the clubhouse after the game several players started yelling “Speech, Speech!” Doc replied “No speech, let’s just win the next two.” That sure sounds like Doc, he was all business on the mound.
After Raul’s speech (it was good and also not too long) a video was played of Roy’s Philadelphia highlights. It was great experiencing all of those wonderful memories again with a crowd full of Phillies fans. And like the crazy sentimental bastards us Phillies fans are, we cheered just as loudly for those highlights that we all have burned into our memories as we did the moment they occurred. It was LOUD and it felt so good to hear a roar like that again. (Let’s just say it’s been a long time since we had something to roar about at Citizen’s Bank Park.)
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Once the video was finished, Dan Baker pointed us to the Phanavision screen in centerfield to see Carlos Ruiz (the catcher who caught the perfect game and the posteason no-hitter as well as nearly all of Halladay’s games in Philadelphia) and Phillies owner John Middleton unveil the new #34 statue outside of Citizen’s Bank Park. Every number retired by the Phillies has its own statue surrounding the park.
Believe me, this is no small honor. Being in business since 1883, the Phillies have only retired seven numbers of ex-players. Plus the #42 of Jackie Robinson, which was retired for every club by Major League baseball.
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After the statue was unveiled, Baker told us to look out past centerfield, above Ashburn’s Alley, where Hall-of-Famer and Phillies great Steve Carlton was waiting. Lefty waved to the crowd and then pulled back the cover to unveil Halladay’s #34, painted on the wall in between Carlton’s own #32 and Robin Roberts #36. Classy move by the Phillies to have Lefty be the one to introduce Halladay on the wall and symbolically let us know he approves of his induction among the greats.
After one final roar from the crowd after Lefty pulled down the cover, the ceremony was over. There was only one thing left to do: play the game!
Maybe, just maybe, all that cheering we did somehow brought back the spirit of Roy Halladay. Taking the mound for the Phillies was Zack Wheeler, our current ace. The game he pitched was the greatest tribute to Doc of them all. Wheeler pitched a complete game shutout, allowing only 2 hits and 1 walk with 11 strikeouts. It was a classic Doc Halladay type of performance as the Phillies beat the Mets 3-0.
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At one point Wheeler retired 22 straight batters. Do know who the last Phillies pitcher was to retire 22 straight batters in one game? Of course you do. It was Roy Halladay during his perfect game on May 29th, 2010. Like the writer Grey said over on Razzball.com, "baseball is going to basbeball."
Of course in Philadelphia, just like the Hall-of-Famer Richie Ashburn used to say, we just said "Hard to believe Harry."