On a night not fit for man or beast at a mile high or in the LoDo, Harry Leroy Halladay III’s happy homecoming had to be held off.
“Everything’s good,” Halladay said on Tuesday evening in the clubhouse moments after the Phillies-Rockies game was postponed by cats and dogs dropping from the wet sky.
Doc Halladay will pitch this afternoon unless there is the usual May 12 Denver blizzard.
“I won’t change my routine or anything. The only difference is in high school, when it snowed, we had to shovel the stuff off the field before we could play.”
That was back in 1995, when Halladay was a schoolboy marvel at Arvada West and the Wildcats were leading up to a state championship final against the Cherry Creek Bruins, who had their own special pitcher — Brad Lidge. (Cherry Creek won; Arvada West took state the previous year.)
When I watched Halladay and Lidge then, I never thought I’d be seeing them a few feet away from each other in the Phillies’ clubhouse now, as teammates. I might have made some money becoming their agent.
For a state not universally recognized for producing major- league baseball players, Colorado has done pretty well. Another of the state’s kids, Goose Gossage, was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame two years ago.
Halladay likely will join him someday. The 6-foot-6 righthander, who has won 154 games early into his 13th season, could finish north of 250 victories, a notable accomplishment in the new century.
Not bad for a guy who almost quit the game at a tender age in 2000.
Halladay will turn 33 on Friday. When the game was postponed a few minutes before the scheduled 6:40 p.m. first pitch, Halladay changed from his baseball pants to gym shorts and rushed off to a welcome-home/birthday celebration put together in a luxury suite at Coors Field by his assembled friends and family.
“It’s been quite a while since I pitched here,” he said.
His last official appearance on the mound in Colorado would have been at state 15 years ago. He had been a two- time Colorado high school MVP with a career (1992-95) record of 25-2 and a 0.55 earned-run average. He possessed a fastball that could get past a rooster at sunrise.
In 1993, Halladay, the Denver-born son of a private pilot and a homemaker, went out to cheer the first Colorado Rockies team and a player named Eric Young, who had the club’s first home run at old Mile High Stadium. Today, Halladay might face Eric Young Jr.
The Rockies could have drafted the teenager shortly after his graduation with the eighth pick in the first round but decided on a position player — somebody named Todd Helton. The Toronto Blue Jays took Halladay at 17th overall. Both teams did OK with their selections.
By 1998, Helton and Halladay were in the majors. In Halladay’s second start at the end of the season, he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning before giving up a home run. He was 8-7 the next year but flamed out in 2000 and was sent back to the minors, dropping all the way to Single-A, where he began. Halladay considered giving up. Instead, he gave up the knuckle- curve.
Halladay was 19-7 in 2002 and 22-7 (and the Cy Young Award winner) the next season. He has been among the very best ever since, and the Phillies, as if they weren’t already loaded, acquired him before this season.
“Doc” Halladay was nicknamed for the old legendary Western gambler-gunfighter “Doc Holliday,” who actually spent the last years of his life in Colorado and is buried on a hill above Glenwood Springs. There is no Wyatt Earp in baseball.
The first time Halladay came to Coors Field was when he was a high school senior, just before signing a contract. The last time he came, Halladay was with the Blue Jays (for an interleague series) but didn’t pitch.
He still hasn’t pitched at the park. There’s a chance it might not even happen this time, even if the grounds crew asks him to help. “I’ve got a lot of people here, and I’d like to do this,” he said.
Halladay has a routine of not speaking the day before he starts, so he didn’t talk publicly Monday night, and I asked if Tuesday was another “official day before.” He laughed, and we had a morsel of a conversation that did not include the meaning of life or why he was off to the best start in baseball — next to a young man who will be pitching Friday. Ubaldo Jimenez and Roy Halladay are the early leaders in the clubhouse for the Cy Young Award.
When Halladay joined the Phillies at spring training, an elderly man approached and said he wanted to shake the pitcher’s hand. Robin Roberts, a Hall of Famer who was with Philadelphia from 1948-61, threw complete games in 305 of his 609 starts. Roberts died last week, but Halladay carries on in honor of one of the Whiz Kids.
He has three complete games this year and 52 overall — first among all active pitchers.
Coloradan Roy Halladay is a complete pitcher.
Now, if we can just see him pitch or shovel snow in Denver.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com
