Me and Doc

The Baseball Hall of Fame announced the Class of 2019 yesterday, and I have no particular quibbles. In Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez, and Roy Halladay, the Hall chose four guys who were the class of the league for long stretches. (And I'd be lying if it didn't amuse me to see Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling on the outside looking in, even as I think both will eventually be tabbed - just miss me with Schilling's acceptance speech.)

No quibbles, and no particular affinity. At least none based on my rooting interests. Rivera obviously tormented my favorite team for the entirety of his career, save two very pivotal postseason games in 2004. Mussina similarly shone against the Red Sox - I especially remember the no-hitter he took two outs into the ninth inning before Carl Everett broke it up. I honestly don't have many memories of Edgar Martinez, other than the times when his peers spoke reverentially of his stroke.

The late Roy Halladay, though, is a weirder story. I have two distinct and very different memories of the big right-hander.

We have to go way back to the mid-90s for the first one. Back then, I played fantasy baseball with a group of dudes. It was early in Halladay's career, and he'd bounced between the minors and the show because of his inability to control his sublime stuff. He demonstrated his potential in a game early in the season, dominating his opponent and leading my fantasy opponent to a victory (the details of both have been lost to time, though I believe I was playing against Whitney the week in question).

Frustrated at the loss, I noted to Whitney that he was the beneficiary of the best game Halladay would ever pitch. Further, I vowed that if the Blue Jays' hurler ever pitched another game as good, I'd buy a Jays cap and wear it during our softball games.

Two weeks later, Halladay matched his performance. And that, friends, is how I came to own one of these:

Several years later, in 2005, I took my Dad to Fenway Park for the first and only time in my life. We'd been plenty of times before, but this was the only time where I paid our way. We took the T in from Braintree (the whole family was vacationing on Cape Cod), and sat in the centerfield bleachers on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Roy Halladay pitched for Toronto against Bronson Arroyo. After both teams scored in the first inning, Halladay stoned the Sox for the next seven innings. The Jays won, 5-2, after the Sox scratched across a meaningless run in the 9th. Halladay went 8 innings, allowing a single run on five hits.

It was the last time my Dad and I were in Fenway together.

Thanks, Roy. Hope you're laughing about that with him somewhere.