MLB's Decade Defining Moments: Roy Halladay's playoff no-hitter
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As the end of the decade approaches, we’re looking at five indelible moments from the world Major League Baseball with a panel of guests talking about their significance. Next up: Roy Halladay’s postseason no-hitter.
The day was Oct. 6, 2010 and Roy Halladay wasn’t content to just pitch in his first postseason game. He wanted to make the best kind of history. He did something that had only been done once before. He threw a no-hitter in the playoffs.
Only Don Larsen had ever done that before and his was a perfect game, back in 1956. More than 50 years in the making, Halladay carved up the Cincinnati Reds as the Phillies won Game 1 of the National League Division Series 4-0. Halladay struck out eight, walked one and got a nice assist from catcher Carlos Ruiz on the final play.
Halladay, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame earlier this year, might have been at his most unhittable that season. He threw a perfect game in May against the Marlins and was the first player since Nolan Ryan in 1973 to throw two no-hitters in the same season.
The feat itself was big enough for decade-in-review inclusion, but you can’t talk about baseball in the 2010s without also talking about Halladay’s tragic death. At just 40, he died in a single-passenger plane crash in 2017. The plane he was flying crashed off the coast of Florida, near his home. It was a moment that shook baseball and made us all remember just how great Halladay was on the mound. Like when he threw that no-hitter in the playoffs.
We talked to a panel of baseball players, ex-players and managers — Ryan Howard, the Phillies’ first baseman at the time, New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone, Angels manager Joe Maddon, Marlins manager Don Mattingly and ex-MLB star Cliff Floyd — about this moment and its importance to this decade in baseball.
PREVIOUSLY IN THIS SERIES
• Armando Gallaraga’s blown perfect game and the rise of video review
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