Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Top 5 Hall Of Fame: Roy Halladay



Next Sunday, the Hall of Fame will induct 6 new members into its hallowed halls. In honor of this event, I'm going to do a daily series this week showing off my 5 favorite cards in my collection for each player.

Today, I take bittersweet look at one of baseball's greatest pitchers, Roy Halladay. Two years ago, I did a Top 3 Tribute upon his passing, and I remarked then how I hoped my meager collection would grow enough to do a proper Top 5. I have, technically, but I would have liked to have had one more card better than the League Leaders card I'm about to show. Once again, I present these in chronological order:

2010 Topps #200 Roy Halladay

2010 Topps Philadelphia Phillies 

#PHI7 Roy Halladay


I'll lump these two together since they are essentially the same card showing him with two different teams. Halladay joined the Phillies for the 2010 season - too soon to be updated in the base set, but photoshopped for the team set release. The Blue Jays card is a former Repack Haiku subject, while the Phillies card was a Goodwill find.

2011 Topps Heritage #56 NL ERA Leaders


My prior tribute had me picking a Triple Play card over this one, but I just couldn't do that to Roy again. He may not be the "big head" here, but he accumulated over 25 more WAR than any of these other guys!

2014 Topps #565


2014 Topps #565 Roy Halladay (back)

Doc's sunset card. I said it before, and I'll say it again - If Topps wants to know why incomplete career stats are a bad thing, all they have to do is look at the sunset card of an All-time great. Just look at all that red!

2017 Topps Update - Untouchables #U-5


Even though I hated watching my Red Sox flail against Halladay in Toronto, this would have to be my favorite Doc card. Twenty career shutouts, including two no-hitters - yeah, that's the definition of untouchable.

Welcome to the Hall, Roy. It's a shame we won't hear you give an induction speech.

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