Roy Halladay took out an ad in the Toronto Sun thanking Blue Jays fans for their “overwhelming passion and devotion.” I assume he meant during those times when it wasn’t Leafs season.
Seriously though, nice move by Halladay, a man about whom I’ve never read or heard a discouraging or disparaging word.
Fun: The linked article does a quick rundown of other athletes who have done the full page ad thing. Johnny Damon, Trevor Hoffman, Mike Sweeney, Drew Bledsoe and even Pacman Jones. I seem to remember a whole bunch more. Makes me think that the gesture, however nice it is, is a bit passe.
I mean, really, Akinori Iwamura took out a full-page ad when he got traded from the Rays to Pirates last month, and he played there for only a couple of seasons for cryin’ out loud. If that doesn’t put us in mid-air over the shark, we’ve certainly strapped on the skis, haven’t we? All of which makes me wonder who will be the first person to escalate things. I mean, newspapers are dying, right? At some point an athlete is going to really up the ante in the “thanks for your support” race.
My guess: Derek Jeter takes out thirty minutes of TV time when he announces his retirement. A full-blown Obama-style deal, where he’s on all of the major networks. Except he’s so smooth with the P.R. stuff he knows that no one wants to hear him talk that long so he speaks for ten minutes and the uses the rest of the time to air previously unseen footage from the 1932 World Series the he bought from some old widow or something.
