City of Roy: Halladay named 2011 Sportsperson of the Year

You hear it all the time. Philly likes its heroes dirty. We like our idols to wear their hearts on their sleeves, to show some emotion, tell a funny tale afterward, maybe even make an incendiary comment now and then. Do a face-plant into a wall as Aaron Rowand once did; play on two bad knees the way Dutch Daulton did; spit a wad of who-knows-what between your cheek and gum as you round third as Lenny Dykstra once did, and we'll understand when you bypass the autograph line on your way to the dugout every day. Take your beatings with no complaint or regret the way Michael Vick has, we might even work harder to forget your past.

So how do we explain how 40 voters from the Daily News sports staff (plus a select panel of others) chose Roy Halladay as our Sportsperson of the Year? Again, for the second consecutive year? How do you explain it after a season in which Cliff Lee returned, entertained and - for months at a time - dazzled and dominated? How do you explain it in a year in which Doug Collins acted as a civic high priest while resurrecting the Sixers? How do you explain it after Shady McCoy finally answered those prayers for an Eagles ground game? How do you explain in a year in which flashy Claude Giroux not only emerged as an NHL superstar, but supplanted Mike Richards as the face of the Flyers? How did we end up with this stoic sports hermit, a guy who finished on the wrong end of our latest baseball agony, that 1-0 defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 5?

Even Roy Halladay is wondering. "As competitive as all the teams are?" Halladay says. "And as competitive as our team is? Yeah, absolutely I'm surprised. We won 102 games, and we obviously have some good players on our team. And then you look around and all the other sports teams. It obviously was a tremendous thrill the first time. But coming from such a good sports demographic, I never would have thought it would happen twice."

Since being traded here in December 2010, Halladay has started 65 games for the Phillies, completed 17 of them, and finished first and then second in the National League Cy Young Award voting. In 2010, he went 21-10 and threw two no-hitters - one a perfect game - with the backdrop of Lee as exiled son. He finished second to the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw in the Cy Young voting last year, the season in which the prodigal son returned. Halladay finished 19-6 with a 2.35 earned run average.