The End of an Era

I thought I was ready. I thought I said good bye. I thought this would be easy since I already knew it was coming. Truth is that nothing could have prepared me for the news that went down today. Doc was traded to the Phillies. Okay, so it might not be official yet but all that's left are the formalities. While I've seen a bunch of rumours about who we're getting back, I could care less. Today is a day of mourning. The true GBOAT won't be taking the mound in a Jays jersey next April.

Roy Halladay was drafted in the first round, 17th overall in the 1995 draft by the Toronto Blue Jays. I was ten at the time so I have no idea what his early scouting reports read but I imagine it had the words "work horse", "inning eater", "lights out" and "fuckin awesome!" in there. I remember watching his second career start in a meaningless last game of the season. The one where he was one out shy of a no-hitter! Right there and then, I knew we had something special. I just had no idea how good he would be.

While he's had a rough patch early in his career, he has come back from it and prospered. He went from having the highest single-season ERA to being one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball. Here is a player, a generational talent if you will, that I have seen evolve before my very eyes and you know what? He was ours! We didn't have to lure him with a big fat paycheck, we didn't have to throw a boatload of prospects to acquire him, he was home-grown and we were damn proud of it.

Doc came to work day-in and day-out. He was a quiet leader who led by example. Despite his dominance, he always wanted to get better and he hated making mistakes. How many times have you seen him bark at himself when giving up a late game solo shot despite being up six? This is the type of guy you're getting, Phillies fans.

I went to Doc's last home start against Seattle. It was vintage Halladay; 9 ks, 7 hits, complete game shut out. With two outs in the 9th the crowd was on their feet. Doc got the last out via groundball and the place erupted. We knew it was possibly the last time we would see him in a Jays jersey. We stood and cheered as he made his way to the dug out. He looked up at the fans, tipped his cap and disappeared into the tunnel.

We miss you, Doc.

Love Hurts

Love hurts

But sometimes it's a good hurt

And it feels like I'm alive

Love sings

When it transcends the bad things

Have a heart and try me

'Cause without love I won't survive

Incubus - Love Hurts

So I'm heading to a concert tonight (Incubus and not Coldplay, thankfully) and as always, I would listen to their albums to get hyped up for it. This morning I was listening to their greatest hits/rarities & b-sides album, Monuments & Melodies and the song Love Hurts came on. As the chorus started to play, I thought of our favourite Czech.

I can only imagine what Tomas must be thinking. For 10 seasons, this man has poured his blood, sweat and tears into this great organization and what does he get in return? Fans demanding he be traded for some young, unproven talent. I have a friend who told me Kaberle was dead to him because we could have gotten Jeff Carter for him. I don't know about you but I clearly remembered when those rumours broke out and I hated the trade. Carter was an unproven talent who showed no signs of being the 40+ goal scorer that he would later become. It's easy to make a trade in hindsight. If we all made deals in hindsight, Stojanov would have never left the Canucks, Gilmour would have never came to the Leafs and we would have never had to see Raycroft don the blue and white (okay scratch that one, that was a horrible trade at the time too).

It's okay to be hurting, Tomas because like the song says, love hurts but sometimes it's a good hurt because it let's you feel alive. I just wanted you to know that we still love you and even if it feels like the whole city of Toronto is against you, you will always have myself, eyebleaf, the general and many others in the Barilkosphere in your corner. We will fuck up Cam Janssen if you need us to, just give us the sign.

We're going to need you to lead this young team. I just hope we can put all this trade talk nonsense behind us and you can go out there next season and do your thing. I look forward to seeing you weave in and out of traffic ever so fluidly when you rush end to end; I can't wait to see you put the puck on a tee for whichever defenceman is fortunate enough to be paired with you; and I'm dying to see you go 4 for 4 again in next year's shooting accuracy competition. Simply put, nobody does it better.