Roy Halladay

SAN FRANCISCO - The first positive sign came on Tuesday night, when Roy Halladay checked back into the clubhouse at AT&T Park and was wearing his regular Phillies workout gear following the team's win over the Giants. He didn't look like a guy preparing a retirement speech. The next came about 12 hours later, when an upbeat Halladay wore both his game uniform and an ear-to-ear grin as he greeted reporters a couple of hours before his scheduled news conference. "Are you guys going to grill me?"

SAN FRANCISCO - Roy Halladay slouched on a couch Wednesday morning and kept a large cup of coffee at his side while the rest of the Phillies clubhouse stirred before another day of baseball. He watched Atlanta against Cincinnati on TV. They played the game to which he has dedicated his life. A surgeon will soon cut a small incision in Halladay's right shoulder, and it will be months before he can pitch again. Still, he smiled Wednesday. He vowed that it would take more to pry baseball from his prized but defective arm. "I have no regrets at any point in my career," Halladay said.

PHOENIX - A day after his 36th birthday, Roy Halladay will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder. The Phillies announced the news before last night's game against the Diamondbacks. Halladay had been mulling his options but decided to have the procedure done in Los Angeles on Wednesday by Neal ElAttrache, the doctor who examined him earlier this week. "I liked him, I thought he was spot-on," Halladay said on Wednesday in San Francisco, when he announced that he would need surgery.

SAN FRANCISCO - A week from his 36th birthday, Roy Halladay sat in a doctor's office in Los Angeles and couldn't escape wondering about his future. Halladay was examined by Dr. Neal ElAttrache at the offices of Dr. Lewis Yocum yesterday, a day after being placed on the 15-day disabled list with right shoulder inflammation. Before last night's game in San Francisco, the Phillies said there would be no update on Halladay's test results until today. And so, they wait. "I expect to hear something before we go home tonight," said a hopeful Charlie Manuel.

2-5 Phillies' record when Roy Halladay starts. His ERA: 8.65  

"[Family members] are under strict orders to speak up if they think I am not writing well any longer, because at this point I could write the telephone directory and get money for it. " - Author John le Carré, 81, to the New York Times   MUHAMMAD ALI'S last fight was a loss to Trevor Berbick in a 10-round decision. That isn't the one I remember, though. It was the fight before that, against Larry Holmes, that will forever endure. The fight was in 1980, with Ali coming out of retirement to try to beat the champion.

SAN FRANCISCO - If the Phillies had information Tuesday regarding Roy Halladay's health, they were not sharing it with the world. A cloud of uncertainty remained over their rotation and the star righthander's future. Halladay saw a doctor Tuesday, this much is sure. But the Phillies did not release any further updates. It was unknown exactly when during the day Halladay saw Neal ElAttrache, the Dodgers' team physician, in Los Angeles, and what tests were performed. An MRI examination was expected.

It's a pretty easy choice. You can be mad at Andrew Bynum or you can be mad at Roy Halladay. You can't be mad at both. Bynum spent the final year of his contract unable to play a single minute of basketball. There was bowling at one end of his wasted season and flamenco dancing at the other, but Bynum made sure the Sixers knew of every twinge of discomfort in his 25-year-old knees. Halladay is spending the final year of his contract trying desperately to play baseball. There is no off-the-field nonsense, only a man working as hard as he can to find a way to earn his money.

SAN FRANCISCO - A day of public humiliation was over, and Roy Halladay slept. The Phillies were on a plane hurtling across the country Sunday night when Charlie Manuel went searching for his pitcher, the man who had failed to disclose soreness in his prized right shoulder to his employer. "I didn't want to wake him," Manuel said. The Phillies manager never talked to Halladay - not on the plane and not before Halladay traveled Monday to Los Angeles for a doctor's appointment Tuesday that could decide the fate of his Phillies career.

A couple of hours before Kyle Kendrick provided the Phillies with the kind of performance that is becoming standard for the underrated and underappreciated 28-year-old righthander, relief pitcher Chad Durbin recalled the running joke that used to be told about his teammate. "He's got two pitches: a sinker and a sinker," Durbin said. "It was half joke, but the reality was that his sinker was good enough that he could come up and get big-leaguers out with one pitch. He had some secondary pitches, but he didn't really need to go to them.