DocTalk: Prognosis negative from the Doctor's wife

A Blue Jays fan seeking reassurances about Roy Halladay might not have got any from his spouse.

For those who aren't following the Red Sox-Jays game on radio today, Brandy Halladay fought tears during a fifth-inning interview with The FAN 590's Alan Ashby and Jerry Howarth. She was on to talk about the food drive the players' spouses and girlfriends, the Lady Jays, are holding this weekend at Rogers Centre, but her voice could be read like a book. Howarth asked an easy question, something like, "What do you get from doing this?" Halladay steered her answer around to, "I've been here a long time and I love this city and I love these people" and it got kind of emotional. She touched on how accommodating GM J.P. Ricciardi has been, how gracious fans have been to her, how it could "my last homestand" and how "rumours are stronger than they have been in the past" and "I really hope the fans know that the Blue Jays have been great to us."

Halladay: "If something happens before trade deadline, I won't be back. That's difficult. That's really difficult. I just broke into tears four minutes ago. I'm in tears now."
Ashby: "It sounds like ... maybe to us, maybe to me, the possibility might be stronger than we've all thought it was going to be."

The bottom line from a Jays fan's vantage point is that Brandy Halladay was really projecting. What she said and the way the words came out belied any talk that the Blue Jays are just dipping a toe in the water with respect to trading Roy Halladay before July 31.

By the same token, surmising that Doc is destined for an American port of ball based on his wife tearing up in an interview is only one space on the Jump to Conclusions mat. Baseball spouses, and not necessarily solely those of the ballplayers, have a ton on their plate. In Brandy Halladay's case, she was helming a 3-day food drive outside Rogers Centre and, as she told Alan and Jerry, was also getting organized to move the family (two young sons) out of Toronto, presumably to their full-year, off-season home. One can only assume there's some stress involved, plus you never pretend to understand how someone else's committed relationship works.

As a fan who only knows what you hear and read in the media, one cannot claim to know what might happen. You can only prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Let's just say hearing Brandy Halladay on the radio makes for a better post-game story than rookie left-hander Marc Rzepczynski harnessing his control and gettng his first major-league win Saturday.

The Jays' brief switch to a four-man rotation, forced by off-days, would mean Halladay would start Friday, July 24 vs. Tampa Bay after he throws on Sunday.

(Not that they need to be told, but Alan and Jerry did a great job handling that interview and getting Ms. Halladay. They got her to open up, but did not exploit her emotion and steered it back on course. Work commitments prevented hearing what she said during an interview with Rogers Sportsnet during Friday's game ... but that interview didn't lead to a friend calling up to say, "Doc's gone, it's bullshit," either.)