Roy Halladay Given Some Award for Being so Philadelphia

Roy Halladay and the Philadelphia Eagles just won the 2011 John Wanamaker Athletic Award, which is named after the man who suggested that the United States buy Belgium for a hundred million dollars in order to end World War I.  The award is given to somebody who embodies Philadelphia or whatever.  I had jokes about this but they got pushed out my head by the recent quadra-loss and Portal 2.

Roy is getting the award for his performance in 2010, which at this point is like giving him an award for being born.  Roy doesn’t care about 2010 anymore.   It wasn’t a “great playoff run” for Roy.  It was “World Series failure in front of everyone.”  He wants to spend time dwelling on that as much as he wants to waste time he could be spending on running stairs.*

Nevertheless, the conch shell has been blown into and the Philadelphia Sports Congress has been summoned to assemble on June 28 for a ceremony of some kind. When you consider that the past winners of the award have been Jimmy Rollins (2007), Ryan Howard (2008), all of the Phillies (2009), and now Doc, the Philadelphia Sports Congress  sounds like it may be comprised of people who just want to giggle and meet ballplayers.

I don’t want to sit here and speculate as to the innermost desire of Roy Halladay, lest he materialize in my bedroom like a dark spectre and unleash merciless vengeance for my presumptions, but it just seems to me like this is exactly the kind of thing he sits through with his eyes glazed over, dreaming of perfecting some minute part of his wind up.

Because this is Philadelphia, and we are both elated and mortified of our baseball players.

*He does not want to do this.