Today, Roy Halladay signed a 1-day contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, before announcing his retirement. Halladay's career stats are as followed: 203-105 W-L; 3.38 ERA; 2117 SO; 1.18 WHIP: 2749 IP. The most striking number is Complete Games pitched, at 67, considered a throwback to a lesser known era when pitchers were treated more like work mules.
Although his career didn't start off as expected, the re-invention of his delivery and mental make up are well documented. My friends over at Mop Up Duty have an awesome article about his transformation to the Hall-Of-Fame-caliber that he turned out to be.
Halladay won two Cy Young's. One in each league. He also has pitched a perfect game, and in the playoffs a no-hitter. He was 4-5 in his last season with Philadelphia, with a 6.82 ERA. His last two years were plagued by back issues, which he revelated today, thus altering his pitching motion, and lastly prompting his retirement.
Every time I zip past the Gardiner Expressway past the dome, I always look over and get somewhat sad, because there used to be a tall banner on the side of a once-dominant, efficient, quiet pitcher, who always had control of every game that he started. I tried to catch as many as I could, because I knew, as we all did, that we haven't seen anybody even close to him since Christy Mathewson of the 1900's.
