Roy Halladay and Mariano Rivera will be enshrined at Cooperstown on Sunday as part of the 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame class, and the late pitcher’s family might tell you Halladay would not have gotten there without the help of the New York Yankees legend.
Rivera threw one pitch throughout his remarkable career, and that one pitch — a devastating cut fastball — made him the greatest closer of all time. At the All-Star Game in 2008, he was seen on camera giving Halladay a lesson on how to throw that pitch. Rivera spoke about the exchange and said Halladay was “like a doctor” with the way he closely examined it.
From one Hall of Famer to another.
This moment between Mo and Doc is amazing. pic.twitter.com/gcJ01Cb6T3
— MLB (@MLB) July 20, 2019
While Rivera joked that his Yankees teammates gave him a hard time for helping Halladay, he was clearly more than happy to share the advice. He even traced his grip on a ball so Halladay could see exactly how to hold it, and that ball has made its way to Cooperstown.
Great baseball moment — https://t.co/bjcLa5EB2h pic.twitter.com/0ZEIyuZpw3
— ProLink Sports (@ProLinkSports) July 20, 2019
Halladay was already a phenomenal pitcher before he picked Rivera’s brain. He won two Cy Young Awards, and one of them came in 2003 — well before his chat with Rivera at the All-Star Game in 2008. The other was in 2010. He also won 16 or more games four times and made four All-Star teams before getting a lesson from Mo on the cutter.
All that said, the cut fastball became a significant part of Halladay’s arsenal around and after the time he spoke with Rivera. According to data from Fangraphs, he threw the cutter on 41.5 percent of his pitches in 2009. Here were the percentages in the next four seasons: 34.2, 44.8, 41.7, 30.3. Prior to 2008, the most Halladay ever threw a cutter was on 25.2 percent of his pitches in 2007. He threw it 19.3 percent of the time in 2006 and barely at all prior to that. The advice was clearly put to good use.
Halladay died in a tragic plane accident nearly two years ago. It’s a shame he isn’t around to enjoy his enshrinement into the Hall of Fame.
