It can be difficult to watch the decline of once great athletes. I often recall what it was like to witness the transformation of Mario Lemieux from the most dominant hockey player in the world into a player who was, as Swedish television analyst Curre Lundmark described during the 2002 Olympics, “skating like an old tractor”. Those magnificent hands and flawless decision making remained, but he was just a giant body trudging around the ice.
Unlike Lemieux, Roy Halladay‘s career was never interrupted by premature retirement, or a foray into a role of player-owner. For those who watched Lemieux play and appreciated his greatness, we knew what life was like without him before it became permanent. A demotion to remake himself early in his career aside, Roy Halladay was among the most dominant pitchers in baseball for the bulk of his 16-year career. So it stings like so much salt in a wound that Halladay has hit the disabled list with what appears to be a severe shoulder issue at the age of 35. There will be no masquerading as a point-per-game player while harvesting some of the game’s future stars, so to speak.
Instead, we will point to a massacre at the hands of the lowly Miami Marlins as a potential end until we’re given reason to believe otherwise.
There’s currently an air of retrospection with a smattering of prognostication milling about in the baseball blogosphere when it comes to Roy Halladay. We’ve gathered some samples from various sites to help us manage expectations moving forward and appreciate the career of Roy Halladay.
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