CLEARWATER, Fla. – The pitcher's pitcher got here before the sun rose, like he always does, even at 35. Most of Roy Halladay's contemporaries have retired. His best friend in baseball just said no more, his arm unable to take the punishment of pitching. Soon enough that same demon is coming for Halladay, so in the meantime, whether out of duty or dedication or principle or superstition or maybe all of them, he walks into an empty clubhouse, changes and starts up his day.

The legend of Roy Halladay starts here. It ends with a game's 27th out. The stories that fill the in-between are but notches on the Halladay continuum that depends on the two things that define him: the early-morning workouts that could sell a million DVDs and the complete games that made him millions of dollars.

Because he is these things, and because these things are what pitchers across baseball envy and revere, Halladay may be the most respected player in baseball among his peers. Pitchers admire Mariano Rivera and his cutter, but he only pitches 60 innings a year. Hitters marvel at Miguel Cabrera's bat, but he's a mediocre-at-best fielder. Players adore Mike Trout's game, but he's done it for one year. Roy Halladay, forgoing the ifs and ands, comes with no buts.

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"He's the consummate pitcher," said Justin Verlander, the game's pre-eminent pitcher today. "He exemplifies what you're supposed to do. He throws 230 innings a year. He throws complete games. He pitches. He strikes guys out. He wins. What more do you want?"

"He hits his spots, he throws hard, his control is off the charts, he's professional, he works hard," said CC Sabathia, perhaps Halladay's only competitor for best pitcher of their generation. "He's everything you want in a pitcher."

"You hear stories," said Matt Moore, the young left-hander for the Tampa Bay Rays who grew up watching Halladay, only to be regaled with the tales of Doc once he arrived in the minor leagues. It doesn't matter what organization you're in: There is someone who either knew Roy Halladay, saw him work, heeded his regimen, read up on his exercises or heard something apocryphal from someone else and felt it worth repeating.

Roy Halladay is Bill Brasky, except for one difference.

"The stories about him," Phillies catcher Erik Kratz said, "are true."











Halladay isn't a particularly reflective sort, not at this juncture of his life, not even in what's almost certain to be the final year of his contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. Such ruminations can connote something more – the finite nature of an athlete's career, or that Halladay's troublesome 2012, his toughest season in a dozen years, was indicative of a trip back to a place he dare never go again.

"You realize very quickly it can disappear in a heartbeat," he said. "So you come here every day and try to take advantage of the moment. When it ends, it ends. We're all aware you can walk in any day and it can go away."

That feeling defines almost everything about Halladay's career. During the 2000 season, as a 23-year-old, he essentially forgot how to pitch. He couldn't throw strikes. Hitters teed off on the ones he did manage. He found himself back in Class A, learning once again how to pitch – and figuring it out with aplomb that manifested itself incomparably over the next dozen years.

There is the durability: Since the turn of the millennium, pitchers have thrown more than 250 innings in a season just nine times. Halladay has two of those. Eight times he threw at least 220 innings. The next-closest pitchers have five such years.

And the complete games: He has 64 since 2000. Livan Hernandez is second with 39. Doc has twirled 19 shutouts. Second best is Tim Hudson with 13.

Following the 2007 season, Halladay emphasized striking out more hitters and responded with a career-best strikeout rate. That wasn't good enough, so he grew it each of the next three seasons. And just to rub it in, he led the league in walk rate each of those three seasons, because mastery of craft well into his 30s and sub-3.00 ERAs weren't enough. Halladay is universally beloved. He does everything sabermetricians love – induce groundballs, strike guys out, walk guys on par with Greg Maddux and prevent home runs – while managing to crank out 199 victories and all those 200-plus-inning seasons that are so important to the majority of starting pitchers that continue to judge themselves on such merits.

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