#105. Halladay vs. Carpenter (Friday, October 7, 2011)
What was your best day…of seeing someone succeed after they had moved on from you (or your team/institution)?
I’ve always liked to think of myself as a Blue Jays fan first (#116, #107), and a baseball fan second (#112). But for the majority of my baseball-watching life, the persistent mediocrity of the Jays meant the second part of that fandom often had to move to the forefront.
This Friday was going to be an exciting day. There were not one but two winner-take-all Game 5s in the National League Division Series. In the afternoon: Brewers vs. Diamondbacks. At night: Phillies vs. Cardinals. It all started at 3 p.m. today, and that excitement was doubled by the fact that the hated Yankees had been knocked out by the Tigers in their Game 5 the night before.
So I went to my morning classes, cut short the usual Friday-afternoon badminton with my best friend Masato (#112) (thus skipping the usual Friday-night Napoleon), then got back to my dorm suite and vegetated in front of the TV.
The first game was pretty thrilling, ending with Tony Plush getting a hit off J.J. Putz (yes, those are real names1) in extra-innings to win the series for the Brewers.
The second game was a bittersweet one for me as a Jays fan, as the two aces facing off against each other—Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter—had both been young Blue Jays when I first got into baseball, circa 1998. They were both pretty ineffective at the time, and I recall thinking the Jays should get rid of them. Eventually, Carpenter was dealt away before his prime and Halladay during his.
I actually didn’t see the Cardinals score the first—and, as it turned out, only—run of the game, because of the extra innings in the previous game. So from the moment I tuned in to the moment Ryan Howard tore his Achilles on the last play to signal the end of the great Phillies dynasty, I was in a permanent edge-of-my-seat state, seeing eight innings of masterful runless pitching by two guys I grew up rooting for.
Confining myself to one space and staring at six straight hours of amazing, dramatic baseball was unforgettable. Seeing this all as an incredibly proud—but also deeply regretful—Jays fan is what made it something even more special.