Monday, October 26, 2009 3:48 PM
Doc dines with Beeston
Jeff Blair
Roy Halladay is mulling over his future with the Toronto Blue Jays after a dinner meeting in Florida last week with Blue Jays interim president and chief executive officer Paul Beeston.
Brandi Halladay, the wife of the Blue Jays ace pitcher, and Halladay’s agent Greg Landry were all involved in the meeting. Alex Anthopoulos, the Blue Jays general manager, did not attend because he developed the flu. But he has spoken to Halladay by telephone. There has been no change in Halladay’s status: he is under contract for another year and Beeston made clear that the Blue Jays want him to be a part of the team. Sources say that if Halladay is open to a contract extension with the team, money will not be an issue.
But there has been a distinct change in the way the team is handling the situation.
Neither Halladay or Landry would respond to interview requests. Anthopoulos, meanwhile, said he would have no comment “out of respect for Doc’s (Halladay’s) privacy.” Anthopoulos’s predecessor, J.P. Ricciardi, was criticized in some circles for the open manner in which he handled Halladay’s status at the July 31 trade deadline. Halladay has maintained publicy that his first preference would be to win a World Series title with the Toronto Blue Jays. That thirst will likely only be ratcheted up Wednesday night when the pitcher the Philadelphia Phillies acquired instead of Halladay - Cliff Lee - starts Game 1 of the World Series.
“It’s one of those things where you need to have a first meeting in order to have the second meeting,” Beeston said Monday. “The first meeting isn’t always meaningful but without it you don’t have the second. It was kind of a love-in.”
Beeston said that the Blue Jays could be in a position to announce their new president during the World Series – “I don’t think Bud (Selig, the baseball commissioner) would mind,” he said with a chuckle when asked about Selig’s preference that teams do not make major announcements during the Series – amid repeated suggestions that Beeston himself remains the preferred choice of ownership.
