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Every season, the MLBPAA gives one player from each team a Heart and Hustle award, with one overall winner being named in November.
On Tuesday, this year's list of team-specific honorees was released, and among them was five-time award-winner Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies. (By the way, Utley's charity, The Utley Foundation, sounds like a fantastic initiative.)
But the award wasn't the story on Tuesday. Instead, it was former Phillies teammate Roy Halladay standing out. The normally hyper-reserved Halladay took to Twitter with a series of tweets giving Utley love for his character and calling him the "definition" of the Heart and Hustle award.
The tweets, which can be found on Halladay's Twitter page, are copied below, as they were written:
I struggle writing this due to the privacy of a man of integrity and the definition of a baseball player. In the video room in the stadium..You will find a row of heart and hustle trophies with chases name. Not because somebody chose to display them but rather a junk drawer...Of sorts for a man who although appreciates the honor plays the game for all the right reasons! Not to be seen or heard or for attention..No look at me see how or any of the me first mentality taking over all parts of baseball sports ect. One of my greatest honors was putting..My heart and hustle trophy along side the definition of the award Their must be one on every team I seen two in my life Scott Rolen and most of all Chase Utley! The award has lost meaning its normally....Given to the guy having the best year. But if you could somehow measure that in a man chase is run away from the pack! What's really sad...Is some our busy patting them selves on the back and missing what a true baseball player is! I kid you not when he talked to me ....On the field I got goose bumps every time! Please encourage your friends, family, most of all your kids to be like chase!
That is, without question, the second greatest letter ever written to Utley, second only to this one:
