Roy Halladay is tired of talking about it.
The same can be said for Jason Bay, as well as Matt Holliday.
As all three have discovered, when waking up everyday entrenched in the world of baseball rumors, silence and dismissals can be the best medicine. For instance...
Halladay just prior to Tuesday night's All-Star Game: “I really have had to deal with it twice, when it first came out and once I leave here I'll probably be done talking about it. It's an out of mind out of sight kind of thing.”
Halladay after his start in St. Louis: “As soon as I get home I don't think I'm going to talk about it for a while. You have a responsibility from time to time to address certain situations and I think I've done that to the best of my ability. I've answered the questions, but now I want to kind of put it behind me.”
That was it... for a while, anyway.
For Halladay, who will surely be a major topic of conversation throughout the Red Sox' three-game series in Toronto this weekend, the distraction comes with wondering if he will be dealt prior to the non-waiver trade deadline at the end of the month.
Everybody wants to know where Halladay will accept a trade, whether he wants to leave Toronto, whether a contract extension necessary and how much involvement he will have in the process. They are all questions he answered before and after his All-Star start. But no more.
”Really for me it's just going back and doing what I normally do,” Halladay said. “Like I said, you address things the best you can. There's a time where it's not something you focus on. This is the time where it's something I have to address, but now I can move on and I'm looking forward to that part of it.”
The potential anxiety for Bay and Holliday stems from wondering what awaits at the conclusion of the season, when both may find themselves at the top of the free-agent market.
For the Oakland outfielder -- who is hitting .276 with eight homers entering the second half -- downplaying the situation has been his way of dealing with his current lot in life.
"It's hard enough game as it is when you have a simple approach," Holliday said. "So to add a bunch of variables and circumstances that are beyond my control, it would do me no good to worry about it."
Bay made it clear back in May that he wouldn't be discussing his contract status, despite riding out the ups and downs of what has been ongoing contract talks with the Red Sox.
As WEEI.com's Alex Speier reported, Bay's representatives remained in contact with the Red Sox about a new contract through the All-Star break, and figure to continue to talk. It has been determined by both parties that such discussions aren't a distraction to Bay or the team, and, according to the outfielder, a good part of that can be attributed to the simple fact that the Sox are winning.
"When you're on a team that is struggling, and you're out of the playoff hunt, a lot of the focus becomes on yourself," Bay explained. "You start thinking, 'I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to finish strong.' But in this situation that's really last on the list. It's night and day. It's actually a breath of fresh air. When you're losing, good or bad, you carry it much more. Here, good or bad, you're winning and everything is good."
Halladay and Holliday aren't so fortunate.
Both players find their teams thinking more about the future than the present, which presents the challenge for each not to do the same.
"I've got bigger fish to fry than to worry about that," Holliday said. "We're in the middle of the season and I'm basically worried about playing well tonight. I don't have the energy or time to worry about what's going to happen three months from now."
"I don't want to know, especially because at this point it's just more about weighing options," the Toronto pitcher said. "It's hard to get caught up in that. I don't feel like it's at the point where I'm adamantly asking to leave and (Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi is) adamantly wanting me to leave. It's one of those things I don't think I need to be involved in every day and I need to be concerned what's going on on the field.
"I've tried to do the best I can to keep my focus on baseball. At some point maybe it's something I have to do. I just think especially as early as things are as quick as they've happened, it's been more of a focus for me to just kind of keep an eye on what I'm trying to do on the field."
And then there is the temptation to watch the other guy.
Entering the season it was believed that Bay and Holliday would be atop the free-agent market when it at least came to outfielders. Thus far Bay has seemingly gotten the upper-hand on his former National League counterpart, coming out of the All-Star break with 13 more home runs and 29 more RBI.
So, naturally, it would make sense that one would keep tabs on the other. But, according the Red Sox outfielder, not so. Chalk the avoidance of analyzing box scores as more chance to push away distractions.
"I distance myself from the rest of baseball. I live in a bubble so to speak," Bay said. "I think early on in my career I don't want to say I got caught up in seeing how guys were doing and I really found it counterproductive. Unless I catch it on ESPN, I'm not racing to check out anybody's daily line.
"It really hasn't been any different. Coming into the year there was the contract situation and peiople wanted to know if that was a big deal and I didn't know how I was going to react. But for me once I was immersed in it, now we're halfway through the season and (the beginning of the season) feels like it was yesterday."
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