Wednesday, April 02

(Photo credit: CFY)

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- It is early Tuesday morning at BayCare Ballpark and Brandy Halladay is working the room.

Clearwater For Youth’s “Breakfast at the Ballpark” is beginning in 30 minutes, and Brandy is saying hello to everybody. The non-profit organization is awarding $180,000 in scholarships to 24 high school students in Pinellas County, including the Phillies’ David P. Montgomery Memorial Scholarship. Halladay has worked with CFY for years, but this is the first year she has awarded a Roy Halladay Memorial Scholarship.

“I wanted to do something to remember Roy, to keep him relevant,” Brandy said.

It has been more than seven years since Roy Halladay died in a plane crash in Nov. 2017. Months earlier, CFY honored Halladay as its 2017 Champion for Youth.

Two years later, Roy got inducted posthumously into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Brandy gave an emotional, pitch-perfect induction speech in Cooperstown, N.Y.

“You know, life doesn’t stop,” she said. “It just keeps going. So you’ve got to appreciate your time and do the best you can with it.

“But being here is awesome. This really feels like home.”

CFY is home, too. It started more than 50 years ago to help children in Pinellas County play sports without concerns for cost. Its missions have grown since then.

Brandy has been co-chair of CFY’s scholarship committee for about three years, but Roy and Brandy were involved with the group long before that.

“Roy and I always had our family foundation,” Brandy said. “We’ve had that since the beginning of baseball. But when Roy retired, it was like, well, now what? We still have our foundation. We still have all these things we want to do. We thought we were going to get to do more. But life after retirement wasn’t so simple.”

Halladay found a passion: coaching his two boys in baseball. He started to work with Positive Coaching Alliance because he wanted children to have memorable, positive experiences in sports.

“Roy had a very strong opinion on how he wanted to coach a team,” Brandy said. “He really wanted to make sure that he coached kids the right way. He always said this: ‘We’re not raising good baseball players. We’re raising young men who happen to love baseball.’ I’ve watched Roy play with eight kids on the field because if you have a bad attitude, he’d rather lose with eight than win with nine.”

(Photo credit: CFY)

The Roy Halladay Memorial Scholarship is sponsored by the Halladay Family Foundation. The selected student has to “demonstrate Halladay’s ability to [persevere], even when faced with challenges” and demonstrate the ability to “overcome those challenges to lead to a successful outcome.”

“The goal for our scholarship is that the kids who come from a team that participated in Positive Coaching Alliance, those coaches and kids are rewarded,” Brandy said. “Coaching was always really important to him. I wanted to keep him relevant, keep his name relevant in sports. I wanted to do something to remember him.”

People often ask how Brandy and her sons are doing. Braden Halladay, 24, is the oldest. Ryan, 20, is the youngest. Both are doing well. Braden is spending this spring working with the Clearwater Threshers -- the Phillies’ Single-A affiliate -- before he takes a job as a data apprentice with the Texas Rangers.

“We’re doing well,” Brandy said. “We’re trying to simplify a bit, just focus on the things that really matter. The boys are closer than ever. We laugh a lot, tell funny stories. I think it’s funny when they tell stories about their dad. If it’s a goofy story, it’s like, ‘Oh, man. Roy used to do that all the time. Remember that time we caught him eating Oreos in the closet?’ But it’s always Roy and the funny story.

“We have a lot of kids that come stay with us. I’ve got three kids right now staying with us. Two play for the Blue Jays. One is trying to get a job [with an organization]. So we’re still in baseball.”

For more information about Clearwater For Youth, visit here.

J.T. Realmuto is expected to make his seventh consecutive Opening Day start for the Phillies on March 27. Who started at catcher for the Phillies on Opening Day 2018, before Realmuto started his streak?

A. Cameron Rupp
B. Jorge Alfaro
C. Andrew Knapp
D. Wilson Ramos

• Citizens Bank Park has some of the nastiest winds in baseball. It prevented 48 homers the past two seasons, including six by Bryce Harper. Here is what Harper and others said about it.

• Harper could win a Gold Glove at first base this season, but he said he would return to the outfield if the Phils could boost the offense by adding a first baseman before the July 31 Trade Deadline.

The Phillies reassigned Japanese right-hander Koyo Aoyagi to Triple-A Lehigh Valley on Saturday. He allowed three hits, four runs and six walks in three innings this spring. He struck out six.

“He’s got the slow lift delivery, and he’s got the quick step,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “We kind of like the quick step because I think it keeps the hitters off balance a little bit, so he’s going to use that a little bit more. He threw a bullpen after he was sent out, and the bullpen was the best I’ve seen him throw. Maybe he can breathe a little bit, go down and start pitching like he knows how to pitch.”

Aoyagi’s quick step is a little more than a second to the plate.

“Our hitters taking BP off him say they can’t time him up,” Thomson said.

Tug McGraw tried to pitch a Grapefruit League game in a dyed green Phillies uniform on March 17, 1977. Umpire Nick Colosi wouldn’t allow him to pitch in green, so McGraw changed.

“He was gonna dye himself green, too,” teammate Ron Schueler said then. “But he ran out of dye.”

C. Andrew Knapp

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