Everyone Has Warts, Even Your Sports Heroes: Some Thoughts on Roy Halladay and Other Imperfect Philadelphia Sports Legends
So, I started with a Google search. I wanted to see if I could dig up some older stories, and maybe find an interesting angle to write from. I was surprised when the whole first page of results was about how he had drugs in his system and was engaging in dangerous trick flying when he died.
Wait a minute? Is that news? I thought we knew this two years ago, not too long after his death.
I checked the dates on all of the news reports. They were all within the last twenty-four hours before I started my research. You see, the NTSB had just finished its report on Halladay's death.
You might think that the more appropriate angle would be, why did it take the NTSB so long to conclude what it is we already all knew. But these were all very serious stories, with quotes from his wife, his sister. I could just imagine the grief they must have been in when a reporter contacted them for a reaction to the report. It's bad enough that they lost someone they loved at such a young age. Now they were getting hounded by the press for a reaction to a conclusion that it was his fault.
Look, I accepted a long time ago that people are never perfect. We all make mistakes. We all have our vices. Some are worse than others. Tragically, some people's vices lead to their death.
I remember distinctly that Monday in November, 1985 when I heard about Pelle Lindbergh from the other kids waiting for the bus with me across the street from my junior high school. His vice was drinking and driving. A little more than five years later, Philadelphia sports fans experienced a little deja vu when the same vice plagued Lenny Dykstra, and almost robbed us of him and Dutch Daulton in the beginning of the 1991 season. We know that isn't Dykstra's only vice.
But should the fact that a sports figure made morally questionable choices necessarily rob us of the great memories we have watching them play? I remember Doc's perfect game as if it were yesterday. Just as I remember getting on Facebook immediately after that day in October, 2010, proclaiming that I heard the Hall of Fame calling right after Doc threw only the second no-hitter in play-off history. The summer he was inducted into Cooperstown, I bought his jersey, and proudly wore it to the two games I attended that season when the Phillies came here to DC. Yes, I knew then that Doc had his demons, and that those demons took him away from us. He didn't need to be perfect for me to be proud that he played for my favorite team.
And yet, I've come to feel the opposite way about Pete Rose. As a boy, I loved Pete. He was the guy who got the Phillies over the hump to win their first World Championship in ninety-six years of existence. I reveled in seeing Rose tie and then break Stan Musial's National League hit record. Even after he rejoined the Reds, it gave me pleasure when he became the all-time hit king. When the story of his gambling broke, I was shocked and disappointed like the rest of the baseball world. But after he served his time for tax evasion, Rose's gambling bothered me less and less. I rationalized that he had served his time, and it had never been shown that he gambled against his own team. His gambling broke the rules, but in my mind it didn't affect the integrity of the game. That was because no one had shown that he intentionally threw a game, like Joe Jackson and six other members of the 1919 White Sox (Buck Weaver famously took no money and refused to throw the World Series). For years, I was on the bandwagon of Pete Rose fans demanding he be permitted to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I even had his jersey, and proudly wore it to ballgames.
But that changed in 2017, when news broke that Rose had admitted to having an affair with a teenage girl. She claimed she was fourteen or fifteen when Rose started the affair. Rose said she was sixteen, the age of consent in Ohio at the time. But even that couldn't cleanse the moral taint of a thirty year old married father taking advantage of a high school aged girl. Perhaps it's because I am the father of a teenage girl. Perhaps because it's universally considered wrong to take advantage of a teenage girl. I was never angry with the Phillies for cancelling the ceremony to put Pete on the Phillies' Wall of Fame. I was just greatly disappointed in Pete. Now I won't wear his jersey out in public because of embarrassment, and I no longer support his induction to the Hall of Fame. It doesn't help that Rose refused to apologize for decades after getting caught breaking baseball's most sacred rule.
Which only goes to show that we all have that line. Endangering himself with risky behavior after retiring from baseball? No, Doc Halladay's vices don't diminish my respect for what he did on the field. It does make me sympathetic to his widow and sons, who have to see this dredged up again over two years after losing their loved one. But missing out on being honored with baseball immortality because of one's own arrogance and predatory behavior towards a high school aged girl, that doesn't muster any sympathy for Pete Rose from me.
To that end, I am still looking forward to be in attendance on the day that the Phillies finally do retire Doc's number.
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References
Alamsy, Steve, "Baseball Hall of Famer Roy Halladay was doing airplane stunts and had drugs in his system on the day he crashed, NTSB report says," CNN (April 16, 2020).Anderson, Dave, "SPORTS OF THE TIMES; Why He Didn't See the Wall," The New York Times (November 12, 1985).
Associated Press, "BASEBALL: Dykstra and Daulton Injured in Car Accident," The New York Times (May 7, 1991).
Breen, Matt, "NTSB: Roy Halladay was doing stunts, had amphetamines in his system when plane crashed," The Philadelphia Inquirer (April 16, 2020).
Breen, Matt, "Roy Halladay's wife, Brandy, on NTSB report: 'No one is perfect,'" The Philadelphia Inquirer (April 16, 2020).
Greenberg, Jay, Hoffman, Rich, and Heine, Kurt, "Pelle Lindbergh's fatal crash," The Philadelphia Inquirer (November 11, 1985, reposted November 4, 2014).
Jones, Kaelen, "Remembering Roy Halladay's Playoff No-Hitter against the Reds," Sports Illustrated (January 22, 2019).
Kussoy, Howie, "Roy Halladay's family just had to 'relive the worst days of our lives,'" New York Post (April 16, 2020).
Martin, Jill, "Brandy Halladay gives emotional Hall of Fame induction speech for her late husband Roy Halladay," CNN (July 22, 2019).
Montemurro, Meghan, "Phillies Cancel Pete Rose's Wall of Fame Induction," Delaware Online (August 2, 2017).
NBC Sports Philadelphia, "Phillies cancel Pete Rose Wall of Fame ceremony amid statutory rape allegations," (August 2, 2017).
Perez, A.J., "Experts: Roy Halladay likely impaired at time of fatal crash," USA Today (January 20, 2018).
Philadelphia Phillies, "Ten Minutes with T-Mac: Discussing Roy Halladay's greatness with MLB.com's Todd Zolecki," YouTube Video (April 14, 2020).
Porter, David, "Former MLB star Lenny Dykstra indicted for drugs, threats," Associated Press (October 10, 2018).
Salisbury, Jim, "Revisiting the night of Roy Halladay's perfect game in Miami," NBC Sports Philadelphia (January 27, 2019).
6 ABC Action News, "Widow of Roy Halladay: NTSB report caused family to relive worst day of our lives," (April 16, 2020).
Spencer, Terry, "Roy Halladay performed stunts, skimmed the water at 11 feet before crash, NTSB says," Denver Post (November 20, 2017).
Weinbaum, William, "Pete Rose has never righted his wrongs," ESPN (November 25, 2015).
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