Thanks, Roy.

Roy, I was away from Toronto in law school during your Cy Young year…Upon returning to Toronto, I made it my mission to attend every game where you pitched against another dominant pitcher…Burnett, Sheets, Beckett, Pettite,…You always wow’d me…I realize in my lifetime, I will never see a pitcher, pitch live, on a regular basis, who is as good as you…Good ones will come and go…but they wont be “the doctor”

You are selfless…You never argued for that extra dollar…You and your family worked tirelessly in the city with charities…You never complained…And you went about your leadership role by showing younger players that any goal can be achieved through hard work and dedication to your family and profession…You could have gotten down and quit back in those ’01 days…But like a true role model you battled back to be the best player the Blue Jays franchise has ever seen…

Im sorry we werent able to produce a championship ring for you…and Im sorry we werent able to put 4 million people in the seats over a season, during your tenure…

But trust this: every Blue Jay fan feels special to have watched you pitch every summer…

Good bye Doc.

Thanks for the countless memories, your charity work, and your desire to win. I will now become a Phillies fan every five days and I hope you come back to where it began to end your Cooperstown-bound career. Here’s to you, Roy.

Lest we Froget!

I always felt better after seeing the doctor, you gave me so many great baseball memories that I’ll never forget. As everyone has said, go and get your rings, you deserve it.

Doc, we fully expect you to sign with the Jays when your time is up with the Phillies. We would love to see you spend your last year as a player with the team you will always be associated with.

Roy you were a pleasure to watch. This hombre is hoping you come back and end your career here once our young talent has blossomed. Best of luck in Philly!

for half of every summer since i moved to Toronto – every 5th day i would think about heading down to the dome. i knew who was pitching and i knew i would get my money’s worth no matter where i sat or even what the outcome was.

i’ll still go see the Js – but it will not be the same. the question of “who’s pitching” will seem irrelevant to me from now on.

good luck, Roy.

Best pitcher we will see for years !!!! thanks roy WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Roy it has been a pleasure to watch you pitch for us for so many years. The way you dominated every player and leaving them shaking their heads after striking out. Derek Jeter always said he hates facing you.

But your time in Toronto was not always about baseball, what you and Brandy did for the city, the kids, Sick Kids Hospital is always comendable and that is one of the reasons why I hate to see you and Brandy leave. I hope you come back some day and like a poster said before I will be there June 25, 26, 27 standing up and applauding.

Now Roy go get your ring(s) and make us proud. We will miss you and your wife, your two-seam fastball, determination, and pure love for the game.

Hey Roy,
just wanted to say thank you for not only inspiring us with your great pitching performances, but your off-field work in the community too. You will be greatly missed by myself and Toronto fans alike.

Enjoy Philadelphia, and get out there and win a World Series ring! Good Luck!

There was something special about going to a Jays game and knowing that you were going to taking the mound that day. A feeling of excitement, of knowing that for the next few hours I would get to watch the best in the game work his craft for my team.

It’s tough knowing that you won’t ever wear a Jays uniform again, but I hope that this trade gets you the World Series Ring you deserve.

Thank you Roy. You’ll always be our Doc!

Old Fashioned Pitcher

How dear to my heart was the old-fashioned hurler
Who labored all day on the old village green.
He did not resemble the up-to-date twirler
Who pitches four innings and ducks from the scene.
The up-to-date twirler I’m not very strong for;
He has a queer habit of coming up lame.
And that is the reason I hanker and long for
The pitcher who started and finished the game.

The old-fashioned pitcher
The iron-armed pitcher,
The stout-hearted pitcher,
Who finished the game.

I will be there in June as part of the standing ovation you deserve. The other poster have said it all. Go get that ring, Doc.

Roy, thanks for the memories! It was a pleasure watching you pitch over the years!

I figured I’d wait this post out. Let the trade settle in. Gain some perspective, understand it was a deal that had to be made, and go from there. Write up a handful of paragraphs praising the virtues of Harry Leroy Halladay and drool excitedly over our own fresh new batch o’ prospect porn.

But you know, that’s not really what I do. I could never write anything as eloquent as things already said (epic), and I won’t pretend to try. And maybe I should wait it out – hell, we don’t even know for sure who exactly is coming back in the deal (as of this writing, it looks like Drabek, Taylor, d’Arnaud)…but for this post, that matters little. This post is all about who the Toronto Blue Jays – the organization and their fans – are losing. So pay attention, Philadelphia. Bear with my melodrama as I type away with the story still unfolding….because our loss is quite clearly going to be your gain.

You know what else this post is not about? The stats. Oh, any Jays fan could probably recite verbatim all the relevant numbers on the back of Doc’s baseball card. We’ll tell you about the Cy. We’ll talk wins, we’ll talk complete games, strikeouts, whatever. We’ll also tell you about his stuff. His filthy, “did you see that?”, stuff. Rivera is & always will be the master of the cutter, but Doc will follow his up with an equally nasty two-seamer. Or maybe he’ll sink the fastball on you. Or just flat-out embarrass you when he drops the hook. But no, this isn’t about the stuff, either.

This post is about the feeling that just having Doc on the team gave to Jays fans. It’s hard to explain, really. He was ours. He was our guy. He grew up in the system, a Blue Jay through and through. He came within one out (damn you, Bobby Higginson) of tossing a no hitter in just his second major league start. A season later, the wheels came off, he struggled mightily, but back he came – through the system – more dominant than ever.

That feeling of pride we felt for our guy came in many forms. Just watching Doc deal. All business. No distractions. No tolerance for error. It came in reading game recaps, with opposing managers & hitters alike inevitably exclaiming that Doc was the best they’d faced all year. And through all of those early struggles and subsequent dominance – he was a Blue Jay. He was the guy who signed not one, but two extensions at a hometown discount because he wanted to be a Blue Jay. Don’t think we didn’t notice that, Roy, because we did.

This post is also about what the Jays are losing off the field. The Halladays are good people, man. Doc’s box for sick kids. His under-reported work in the community. The responsibility he felt as a role model. Read this piece from a few seasons back, and if it doesn’t get a little dusty for you, well, you’re as robotic as Doc’s right arm. Honestly, I’m sure there are many players who do as much in their towns as Doc, but rare is the athlete who can match that integrity, that dedication, that humility….and that talent. And we had him. For twelve seasons, we had him.

Players come and go. We’re cheering for laundry, right? I’ll get excited about the players coming back in the trade. They’ll bring hope for better days ahead and a new era of a competitive Toronto ballclub. In time, we’ll be breathless about the next great pitching prospect in the system. Some day, we might even find a kid of whom we will say “he reminds me a little of a young Roy Halladay.”

But there will never be another Roy Halladay. There can’t be.

roy, carlos, george & jesse are my favorite jays of all time. i’ll still wear my halladay jersey with pride, especially since he’ll be playing for Phili & not boston or nyy. good luck in winning many world series roy.

Roy, Carlos, George & Jesse were my favorite jays of all time. I’ll still wear my halladay jersey with pride. Also really glad that Roy will be playing for Phili. Can’t imagine him wearing either Boston or NYY. You will be missed Roy. Good luck in winning the world series

The Jays have never had a pitcher as good as Roy, and it’s been a very long time since they’ve had a player so good that even non-fans respected him the way they did with Doc. I think I was only lucky enough to see him pitch in person once – a complete game win over the Red Sox in July, when the trade frenzy was at its highest – but that once made all the times I had to suffer through Ted Lilly or Mark Hendrickson mediocrity worth it. Thanks, Roy.

Roy, you have made the last 10 years of Jays baseball so much more palatable. It was a pleasure and an honour to see you pitch for the Jays. In my heart you will always be a Blue Jay and I look forward to seeing you enter the Hall with a Jays hat and I look forward to seeing you honoured with your name on the Level of Excellence.

You are and have always been the epitome of class.

I know have a second favourite team and my family and I will be cheering up in here in Toronto when we see you pitching in the post-season.

best of luck to you and your family.

I’m a bit of a baseball snob. I tend to think that most of the baseball cliches of winning with “heart” and by “wanting it more” are all just a bunch of hooey. And yet Roy Halladay exists as the counterpoint to my cynicism. Having fallen so far from the lofty heights of his 1998 call-up and sent down all the way to A-ball for a re-tool in 2001, Roy was faced with the realistic possibility that he could soon be without a job, without a post-secondary education and trying to provide for a newborn child. It is because of this that he dedicated himself as perhaps no pitcher had done so before, adopting a physical regime unmatched in the big leagues and re-evaluating everything about his game. The result is a career that is hopefully bound for Cooperstown and definitely bound to leave a permanent mark in the hearts of Jays fans around the world. Roy is a warrior on the field, and a gentleman off. He was and remains a role model for young pitchers across Canada. He’s the perfect example of how far limitless dedication and an unhuman work ethic can take a talented young prospect. Hopefully his legacy can serve as an example for the prospects we recieved today. Thank you Doc. If we can’t win a World Series, any team that has you on it becomes the next best thing. Go Phils!