Heroes and Villains 2008: Heroes

Roy Halladay

In a year that saw a surprise federal election called two years early, our parliament prorogued, and a major university locked in an indefinite strike, there's a simple nobility to someone who shows up every day with the desire to finish what they start. There's nobody in this fair city that performs their job as consistently, stoically, and dare we say heroically as Roy Halladay. Granted, his job is pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays, but that’s no easy task these days, what with a shrinking fan base, plummeting pay roll, and the infuriating supermarket sweep that has been the New York Yankees' off-season.

Doc has been the only consistent element on the Jays this millennium, and he had a whale of a season again in 2008. The six-foot-six gentle giant won twenty games, struck out 206, and achieved a sparse ERA of 2.78, all for a club that logged another in a long line of middling seasons. Halladay's numbers would certainly have been good enough to earn him his second Cy Young award in any season where Cleveland's Cliff Lee hadn't gone through some sort of genetic mutation. But in a way naming him the best pitcher in the league fails to do justice to his unique skill set—he may just be the best pitcher of the age. (And he pitches as if he's from another age altogether.) Halladay recorded nine complete games this season, far more than any other pitcher and more than the pitching staff of twenty-seven entire teams. Every time Doc throws the first pitch of a game, he plans on throwing the last pitch as well.

There's been murmuring these past months, most notably from über-cynical Globe columnist Jeff Blair, that the Jays should trade Halladay with an eye towards rebuilding for the future. This would be a disastrous decision. While there seems be little chance of the Jays contending next year, with or without their star, Halladay's workhorse ways are, in themselves, a reason for fans to continue to watch and hope. (Nobody's going to suggest that, say, the United States ditch Barack Obama, even though the country seems destined to continue its downward economic spiral.) Toronto needs to hold onto Halladay at all costs—at least until his commitment to excellence and hard work inspires both York University and the Conservative government to get back to the mound and finish what they started.

BY MITCHELL CUSHMAN; PHOTO BY NATHAN DENNETTE/ AP