Halladay would wear Blue Jays cap if he enters HOF
Retired pitcher Roy Halladay has aspirations of becoming a member of baseball's Hall of Fame, and if he ever were to receive the honor, he would enter wearing the cap of the Toronto Blue Jays.
"I’d go as a Blue Jay," Halladay said Sunday during an anniversary celebration of some of Toronto's best franchise players, according to the Toronto Star's Mark Zwolinski.
"I wanted to retire here, too, just because I felt like this is the bulk of my career."
Halladay spent the first 12 seasons of his career in Toronto, where he amassed an impressive 148-76 record with a 3.43 ERA, while living up to his workhorse title by tossing 2,046 2/3 innings.
He also won a Cy Young award in 2003 after 266 innings of work, so the Blue Jays recent decision to switch to a six-man starting rotation in order to preserve the arm of young right-hander Aaron Sanchez, isn't one he thinks he could have accepted during his tenure.
"I would have really had a hard time with it,” Halladay explained to the Toronto Star's Richard Griffin. "But that’s what all the guys in the four-man said (when MLB went to five). They’re like, ‘Man, these guys are soft.’
"If you have the kind of pitchers that (the Jays) do and a strong bullpen, it’s got to be beneficial. You’re saving arms. The guys are fresher every time they go out. It seems like so many more advantages. It’s probably more of a selfish thing to be able to want to pitch on a four-day or five-day. There’s times when you have a bad start and that would be hard to sit on for five days. That, for me, would be the tough part is having a short 2-3-4 inning start and then thinking, man, I have to wait this much longer to get out there again."
Halladay pitched his last season in the bigs in 2013 with the Philadelphia Phillies, ending his career with a 203-105 mark accompanied by a 3.38 ERA and 67 complete games across 2,749 1/3 innings.
The 39-year-old will be eligible for the Hall of Fame for the first time in 2019.