Roy Halladay and fellow Toronto Blue Jays pitcher A.J. Burnett spent the first part of their day masterminding -- the term is loosely used -- the mock wedding of shortstop Russ Adams and second baseman Aaron Hill.
It started in the morning when the players were stretching before their 6-2 victory in the afternoon over the Philadelphia Phillies. An airplane dragging the banner "Aaron will you marry me? I love you, Russ" flew low over the park.
Inside the clubhouse, the two infielders were decked out in tuxedo tops with their uniform numbers on them and there was a mock ceremony in one of the rooms of the clubhouse area. Wedding invitations had a return address with the number 3234, which happens to be the combination of Halladay's uniform number, 32, and Burnett's, 34.
"You can't mess with older guys that have a lot more money than you," Hill said.
Adams and Hill are friends and spend quite a bit of time together as teammates and sometimes are reminded of it by teammates.
"Now Doc's got a new buddy, A. J., and we messed with them a little bit," Hill said.
The elaborate wedding prank was a little payback.
"It was funny," Hill said. "They went all out on this thing. We walked in and it was typical, just like a wedding would be. They did it right, they sure did. We had to cut the cake. They did a good job."
During the game, a plane flew over the park carrying a banner of congratulations.
"It was fun, they're good kids, they take it well," Halladay said after he had pitched six solid innings. "They're a big part of our team. It's fun to be able to do it to guys that you like and have them enjoy it and have everybody enjoy it. There's a lot of good chemistry [on the team] We had that last year and it continued with the new guys coming in."
Halladay gave up nine hits, two runs and two walks in six innings, while the Blue Jays scored six runs on 10 hits in four innings against Phillies starter Jon Lieber.
It was Halladay's final start of spring training and he finished with a 1.89 earned-run average. He will start the Blue Jays' opening game of the season on Tuesday against the Minnesota Twins at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have set a target of April 16 in Chicago against the White Sox for Burnett's first start of the season. He is scheduled to throw from a mound today, then start on Saturday against the Jays' Triple-A team, the Syracuse SkyChiefs. He will be put on the disabled list to start the season and have two starts for Toronto's Dunedin team in the Class-A Florida State League before his first start for Toronto.
Burnett came out of his start on March 18 against the Boston Red Sox when some scar tissue broke in his elbow, on which he had reconstructive surgery in 2003.
"We'll err on the side of caution," general manager J.P. Ricciardi said. "Try to build his arm back up and make sure he's ready to go, because when he goes, we don't want it to be like two innings. He's got medical clearance, it's not even a medical issue. It's just a matter of making sure he's comfortable and making sure he's got enough innings underneath him and when we run him out there the bullets are real."
Left-hander Scott Downs is scheduled to make both starts in the rotation that Burnett will miss. Downs came out of his start on Tuesday against Minnesota with a flare-up of patellar tendinitis in his right knee, but he said yesterday there was no problem.
The Jays will add a pitcher to fill out their 25-man opening-day roster, and it could be left-hander Brian Tallet, who has not given up a run on seven hits in 111/3 innings and nine games. Right-hander Shaun Marcum is another possibility.