MLB Bullets says goodbye to Doc

Baseball has had better days. I’m tired of writing these stories at this time of year. Not only that, but while you can just read my summaries of these articles, I have to at least skim them all (and many more that I don’t include) and remind myself of what baseball has lost each time.

• As you might expect, pretty much all the news today concerns the passing of former Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay in a plane crash at the age of 40. Tom Verducci writes that Halladay was a man defined by both his competitiveness and his humility. Halladay never wanted the spotlight. He only wanted to win.
• Martin Frank gives examples of Halladay’s humility from his time with the Phillies.
• Ken Rosenthal gets Halladay’s former teammates to open up about him and they said that as great a pitcher as Halladay was, he was even a better person for the way he cared about his teammates, friends and family. (The Athletic made this article free to everyone without a subscription.)
• Joe Posnanski outlines how great Halladay was on the mound and how hard he worked to get there.
• Jeff Passan calls Halladay the “last of his kind.”
• Ben Lindbergh notes that Halladay was your favorite pitcher’s favorite pitcher.
• Jon Heyman talks to former Cubs scouting director Tim Wilken, who drafted Halladay when he was with the Blue Jays and who became his friend and neighbor. Wilkens provides a copy of Halladay’s amateur scouting report which coincidentally, Wilkens had give a copy to Doc just the night before the crash.
• David Schoenfield praises Halladay’s ability on the mound, which he notes was a product of Halladay’s long hours of preparation and his intensity.
• Grant Brisbee is inspired, not by Halladay’s Cy Young Award years, but rather by his terrible 2000 season and how instead of being defeated Doc overcame that and turned himself into the best.
• Tim Cato looks over Halladay’s personal Twitter feed and notes a man dedicated to his family and community in retirement.
• Jerry Crasnick praises Halladay’s professionalism.
• Mike Oz has five of the most memorable moments of Halladay’s career. I will never forget that no-hitter against the Reds in the NLDS.
• Some reactions from his Phillies teammates on his passing.
• Ted Lilly can’t believe that yet another good friend and teammate has died in a plane crash, after Cory Lidle’s death in 2006.
• Richard Griffin notes that even more than baseball or flying, Halladay’s number one passion was his wife and children.
• Dayn Perry looks at Halladay’s love of planes and flying, which eventually cost him his life.
• Moving on to other news. Will Leitch does his annual ranking of MLB “tortured fan bases.” The Astros drop from number 11 to number 30.
• George Springer and Jose Altuve are on the cover of Sports Illustrated, along with that now-famous 2014 cover predicting the Astros would win the 2017 World Series.
• Carlos Correa met with the four-year-old girl who was heartbroken when he got engaged after game 7, and America decided it was immensely cute.
• MLB president of business and media, Bob Bowman, announced that he will leave his job at the end of the year. Andrew Buchholz looks at how Bowman changed baseball forever with his creation of MLB Advanced Media.
• You know that Jason Heyward won a Gold Glove. Here’s a complete list of the winners.
• Here are all the top three finishers for all the BBWAA Awards.
• Phil Rogers has 10 players who had under-the-radar breakout seasons in 2017. Hey! There’s Blake Parker!
• Yankees general manager Brian Cashman finally spoke about the decision to fire manager Joe Girardi and said that Girardi’s problems communicating with the players was the biggest reason.
• Shohei Otani has hired a US agent, in preparation for a possible move to MLB.
• The Cardinals have released Trevor Rosenthal, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery.
• Bartolo Colon wants to pitch in 2018. John Lackey too, but that’s Cub Tracks territory.
• Mike Axisa has ten “bold” predictions for the Hot Stove.
• Evan Davis makes just five “bold” predictions. That’s 15 examples of “bold” for you.
• Cliff Corcoran ranks the top free agent pitchers this winter.
• Corcoran also explains why Alan Trammell belongs in the Hall of Fame.
• Jeff Sullivan looks at some projections for 2018 and has some bad news for Royals fans: The Royals are pretty bad.
• Finally, I have an unhealthy obsession with 1908 “Merkle’s Boner” game that was the biggest event in the Cubs last World Series-winning season before 2016. Researcher Richard Hershberger has found another similar game that took place in 1889 with a different outcome.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.