Before Roy Halladay was Doc, the nickname belonged to Ron Taylor.
Halladay got it from the immortal Blue Jays broadcaster Tom Cheek, because the ace pitcher’s name and ruthless efficiency reminded him of the old west gunslinger Doc Holliday.
Taylor earned his nickname the hard way: by getting the degree.
The 海角社区官网native, who passed away Monday at the age of 87, was a two-time World Series champion as a player. A right-hander who pitched mostly in relief聽鈥斅17 starts out of 491 big-league appearances聽鈥 Taylor played 11 big-league seasons for five teams.
He made two appearances in the 1964 World Series, throwing 4 2/3 hitless innings for the St. Louis Cardinals in their seven-game win over the New York Yankees. Four of those innings came in Game聽4, when Taylor came in to protect a 3-2 lead starting the sixth inning and finished the game for a save. He faced 13 batters and the only one to reach base was Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle, who walked with one out in the eighth.
Taylor also made two hitless appearances in the Fall Classic for the 1969 Miracle Mets, coming in to retire Baltimore Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson with two on and two out in the bottom of the ninth and secure a 2-1 New York win in Game 2 on the way to a five-game World Series win.
Over six playoff games聽鈥斅爄ncluding two in the inaugural National League Championship Series in 鈥69聽鈥 Taylor posted an ERA of 0.00. He never gave up a hit in the World Series.
Near the end of his playing career, Taylor went on a goodwill tour of Vietnam with the USO and, inspired by interactions with wounded soldiers in army hospitals, he decided to go into medicine.
The former big-leaguer went back to school 鈥斅爀nrolling at the University of 海角社区官网at age 35 鈥 and became a doctor, but didn’t leave the game.
Taylor won two World Series as a pitcher, one with the New York Mets.
海角社区官网Star file photoThe nascent Blue Jays hired him as team doctor in 1979 and he served in that capacity for three decades, while also running a private practice in Toronto.
It was with the Jays that Doc Taylor picked up his third and fourth World Series rings.
“He was a special guy for me,” Pat Gillick, the architect of those great Jays teams, said Monday. “He was great. Basically the players trusted him because he was one of their own. I think the players had confidence and knew that he had their backs.”
One of those players was pitcher Pat Hentgen, who spent a decade with the Jays and won the Cy Young Award in 1996.
“He had that unique skill set that really no one else had,” Hentgen said from his home in Michigan. “He was able to sit on the table with us and it was just a different feeling. How do you explain that? When do you have a doctor who was actually a major-league player as well? As a player, I remember thinking: pretty damn cool, really impressive.”
Medical school wasn’t the first venture into higher education for Taylor. When he signed with Cleveland as an 18-year-old (Canadians were not yet eligible for the major-league draft) part of the deal was that he would be able to continue his education.
“He became an engineer,” Jays president emeritus Paul Beeston told me. “And so he would go late to spring training and then start his summer job, which was playing professional baseball, and then he’d go back to school.”
And between getting two degrees, Taylor threw 800 innings in the big leagues. No big deal.
Taylor, inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985, was the Jays鈥 team doctor for my first decade-plus of covering the team. He was a kind, quiet, gentle man in my interactions with him, always willing to talk about baseball but never giving off those professional athlete vibes. Literally the definition of the kindly old doctor.
And he was. He made house calls to build his practice in the 鈥70s. He wasn’t just the Jays鈥 doctor, but would also take care of players’ families. He was the personal physician to Gillick and many others.
“Whenever you needed something, he was always there for you,” said former catcher Ernie Whitt, who spent a decade with the Jays under Taylor’s watch. “When I was here, my kids were young. If they had to see a pediatrician or stuff like that, he would always make that he set it up and took care of all of that, or any medications that we would need. (The Taylors) were part of our family.”
Beeston sums up the man we all knew as the Jays鈥 first Doc.
“Ron Taylor was about as good a guy as you’d ever want to meet. He was always available, always professional and had his patients’ best interests at heart at all times. A terrific human being.”
Correction —聽June 17, 2025聽
This obituary has been updated. A previous version incorrectly stated that Dr. Ron Taylor was a left-handed pitcher. He was right-handed.
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