CLEARWATER, Fla. -- As tall tales go, the one about Roy Halladay and the Amazon Anaconda was a big one. During the off-season, the Phillies ace went on a fishing trip in Brazil with some friends that included Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter and former Blue Jays closer B.J. Ryan. When they returned, Halladay was suddenly hailed for single-handedly saving a man from a giant killer reptile.
The more the story was told, the crazier it got. The most recent version had Halladay diving into the murky water with nothing but his bare hands and a snarl, only to bite the snake in half with his teeth and later fashion the carcass into a decorative suit and some fancy shoes.
It was a good yarn. Alas, during an interview at Bright House Field on Tuesday, Halladay debunked the myth.
I was not wrestling snakes, Halladay said while he and everyone in the room laughed. I was nowhere near snakes. We were just driving back. We had been fishing all day and we were on the boat driving back. We happened to see a guy sitting on the shoreline without clothes. We couldnt talk to him. The guides had to talk to himthey were speaking Portuguese. He had been attacked by a snake and escaped. But it had ripped the engine off his boat and left all his stuff out in the river. So we picked up his stuff, picked him up, and drove him back to his tribe I guess you would call it.
So, uh, Roy, about this naked man you encountered on the Amazon: how exactly did he lose his clothes?
He had nets underwater, Halladay explained. He was diving for aquarium fish underwater and the snake started wrapping him. At one point he was getting away from it and it tore his shorts off him and bit him on the backside. He swam to shore and I guess the next closest thing to grab was the boat engine, so it grabbed the boat engine.
Halladay said that he thought the man might have been intoxicated, which makes sense because diving into a muddy, Anaconda-filled river probably isnt something sober people regularly consider. They have native trees down there, Halladay said. The barks a little potent when you smoke it, and I think he was partaking of that. It was interesting.
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Someone asked Halladay what he might have done if he had come upon the man at the exact moment he was fighting a giant snake for his life. Halladay surely would have jumped into the water to save the dayright?
No. No. I would not have, Halladay said. Then he considered it for a moment and added, I might have saved the boat.
E-mail John Gonzalez at jgonzalez@comcastsportsnet.com