Roy Halladay wants you to vote for Carlos Ruiz
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Roy Halladay wants you to vote for Carlos Ruiz
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
Hey, Philadelphia, circle up. Roy Halladay has something to say to you. See, the first update on fan voting for the All-Star Game was released today, and Carlos Ruiz ranked a distant fourth at catcher for the National League, with leading vote-getter Yadier Molina of the Cardinals nearly doubling his total of 562,021.
Also ranking ahead of Ruiz are the Giants' Buster Posey (1,072,464) and the Braves' Brian McCann (707,508). This, despite the fact that Ruiz leads each of those catchers in batting average (.368), on base percentage (.416), slugging percentage (.600), OPS (1.016), and is tied with Molina for the lead in home runs (8) and RBI (32).
Well, Halladay thinks this is a big load of male cow dung. And he's expecting better treatment of his catcher in between now and when the next voting update is released.
"He's in the right town," Halladay said on Tuesday afternoon. "This town can get him in just by themselves alone. He just hasn't gotten the national recognition he deserves."
Translation: if you don't Vote for Chooch, you're going to end up sleeping with the fishes and the Putin opposition. OK, that might not be an exact translation. But Halladay does think a great injustice is being done to a guy who has been the Phillies unquestioned MVP thus far this season.
"I think people get caught up in names, unfortunately," he said. "All they want to talk about is Posey and Molina and McCann, but maybe they should put a stat sheet out with the names.
"There's no question in my mind" that Ruiz should be the leading vote-getter at his position, Halladay said, "especially with where he's hitting on our team and the role he is playing for us. In my mind, there is no question at all. He's been underrated even the past years, now he's having the offensive year to go with it. He should definitely be a lot higher than he is."
Ruiz told reporters that he had not looked at the voting, but that he was not upset or angry at his lack of support. But Halladay knows how much a spot in the game would mean to his catcher.
"It'd mean a lot to him," Halladay said. "It'd mean a lot to every player, but especially him. He should have gone a couple times and just never got the recognition."
Voting takes place online, with fans able to submit up to 25 ballots per email address. Click here for the ballot.
