It turns out, Roy Halladay is hittable after all.
The Philadelphia Phillies pitcher who tossed a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds last week saw his hitless streak end in the left-field seats. He allowed two solo home runs to Cody Ross and pitched like a mere mortal in a 4-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night.
"You never expect it to be easy," Halladay said. "If you can't handle failure at this point, you're in the wrong business."
Halladay's hitless streak ended at 11 innings when Ross homered off him in the third inning of the National League Championship Series opener.
"He's going to give up some runs sometimes," Charlie Manuel, the Phillies manager, said.
Ross was only three for 16 against Halladay in his career. But the Giants' right fielder hit a pair of fastballs to almost the same location just a few rows deep in the left-field seats.
Halladay was also hurt by a close umpiring call. He had retired the first two batters in the sixth inning, then Buster Posey singled.
On an 0-2 pitch to Pat Burrell, Halladay thought he had a strikeout - and so did 45,929 towel-waving Phillies fans. But Derryl Cousins, the home plate umpire, called the pitch ball one.
Burrell doubled on the next pitch to make it 3-1, and Juan Uribe followed with an RBI single to make it 4-1. Halladay refused to criticise Cousins.
"It's part of it," he said. "There were obviously calls they wanted, too. If you don't get a pitch, you have to make the next one."
The extra runs proved to be the difference. Jayson Werth hit a two-run homer for the Phillies in the sixth, but they could get no closer.
Halladay gave up eight hits, walked none and struck out seven in seven innings.
"Can he pitch better than that? Yeah, of course, he can," Manuel said. "But tonight, they hit some balls good on him."
NL Championship Series
San Francisco v Philadelphia
Game 1: San Fran 4, Phil 3
Game 2: San Fran at Phil, late Sunday
Game 3: at San Fran, tomorrow
Game 4: at San Fran, Wednesday
Game 5: at San Fran, Thursday*
Game 6: at Phil, Saturday*
Game 7: at Phil, Sunday*
* if necessary
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The major Hashd factions linked to Iran:
Badr Organisation: Seen as the most militarily capable faction in the Hashd. Iraqi Shiite exiles opposed to Saddam Hussein set up the group in Tehran in the early 1980s as the Badr Corps under the supervision of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The militia exalts Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but intermittently cooperated with the US military.
Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigade): Comprised of former members of the officially defunct Mahdi Army, a militia that was commanded by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and fought US and Iraqi government and other forces between 2004 and 2008. As part of a political overhaul aimed as casting Mr Al Sadr as a more nationalist and less sectarian figure, the cleric formed Saraya Al Salam in 2014. The group’s relations with Iran has been volatile.
Kataeb Hezbollah: The group, which is fighting on behalf of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, traces its origins to attacks on US forces in Iraq in 2004 and adopts a tough stance against Washington, calling the United States “the enemy of humanity”.
Asaeb Ahl Al Haq: An offshoot of the Mahdi Army active in Syria. Asaeb Ahl Al Haq’s leader Qais al Khazali was a student of Mr Al Moqtada’s late father Mohammed Sadeq Al Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric who was killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba: Formed in 2013 to fight alongside Mr Al Assad’s loyalists in Syria before joining the Hashd. The group is seen as among the most ideological and sectarian-driven Hashd militias in Syria and is the major recruiter of foreign fighters to Syria.
Saraya Al Khorasani: The ICRG formed Saraya Al Khorasani in the mid-1990s and the group is seen as the most ideologically attached to Iran among Tehran’s satellites in Iraq.
(Source: The Wilson Centre, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation)
MATCH INFO:
Second Test
Pakistan v Australia, Tuesday-Saturday, 10am daily at Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Entrance is free
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950