Phillies

Roy Halladay is Passing on Pitching Mind-F@$k to Cole Hamels

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jun 6th, 2013 · 10:59 AM EDT

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It’s been well known that Roy Halladay bought what mentor Harvey Dorfman was selling in The Mental ABC’s of Pitching, so much so, in fact, that Halladay handed out copies to minor league pitchers a few years ago. Now he’s imparting the wisdom of Dorfman, who died in 2011, to Hamels. As chronicled by Sam Donnellon of Philly.com:

SOMETIMES THE phone rang in Dunedin or Clearwater. Sometimes it rang wherever Cole Hamels happened to be pitching that day. Sometimes the conversation took place the next day, when the frustration had subsided a bit.

But over the last trying month, the phone call would be made. And it would be answered. And whether it was Roy Halladay calling Cole Hamels or Cole Hamels calling Roy Halladay, the topic was pretty much the same, about a well-pitched game that ended in a loss, or more recently, about the aggregate psychological effect such losses have on a pitcher.

Halladay knows the feeling. Getting out of those funks often meant a phone call to Harvey, maybe even a visit. Now it is he who mentors Hamels, who is the man on the other line, who is the reassuring visitor.

“There’s no question that he still has the same stuff and that he’s going to be successful,” Halladay said. “He’s going to be fine. He is going to be that leader. He is going to be that guy.

You want to talk to the dolphin, you talk to me, Roy says.