Halladay To Go Into Baseball Hall of Fame with capless plaque

The family of the late Roy Halladay has reportedly requested his future Baseball Hall of Fame plaque not sport a Toronto Blue Jays or Philadelphia Phillies logo.

Halladay will be inducted into Cooperstown in July alongside Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina and Edgar Martinez, Harold Baines and Lee Smith. The irght-hander played 12 seasons for the Jays and finished his career with four years in Philadelphia.

Halladay, who died in a plane crash in November 2017 at the age of 40, received 85.4 per cent of the votes to gain entry to the hall on Tuesday in his first year of eligibility on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot.

But speaking to the press at the official unveiling of the 2019 class in New York on Wednesday afternoon, Halladay’s wife Brandy, flanked by sons Braden and Ryan, said the family has decided Halladay’s plaque would remain neutral.

“He was a major-league baseball player and that’s how we want him to be remembered,” Brandy told the media at the official unveiling of the 2019 class in New York on Wednesday afternoon.

The Baseball Hall of Fame is expected to make an official announcement regarding Halladay’s plaque later Wednesday.

Halladay was selected by the Blue Jays in the first round of the 1995 draft and played 12 seasons with the club. He finished out his playing days with four seasons as a member of the Phillies, leading the team to consecutive National League championship series. He pitched the second no-hitter in post-season history in 2010, the same year he pitched the 20th perfect game in MLB history.

It was with the Jays that Halladay was most dominant, etching out a hall-of-fame-worthy career in more than a decade in Toronto, and it was widely expected he would become the second player to wear a Blue Jays cap on his Cooperstown plaque, joining Roberto Alomar Jr., who was part of the 2011 class.

Halladay told reporters in Toronto in 2016 that he would go into Cooperstown wearing a Jays cap, because it’s where he spent the bulk of his career. It was for that reason that Halladay chose to sign a ceremonial one-day contract with Toronto when he retired, to finish his career as a Jays player.

But after his death, it was ultimately up to the family to decide which team Halladay would represent in Cooperstown.