Baseball: Roy Halladay, ex-major league pitching star,dies in plane crash

Retired Major League Baseball pitcher Roy Halladay, who twice won the games's top pitching award ad threw one of only two no-hitters in postseason history,died on Tuesday.

The incident occurred when his small plane crashed off the West Coast of Central Florida. He was 40.

An ICON A5 single-engine amphibian aircraft belonging to Halladay,crashed into the Gulf of Mexico less than a mile offshore from the city of  New Port Richey, according to the Pasco Country Sheriff's office.

"We were praying for the best, that it could be a search and rescue and we were just going to be taking him to the hospital," Pasco Country Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a news conference.

"The worst-case scenario happened and it just breaks our hearts."

Halladay was alone in the plane and his body was recovered, Nocco said.

"He did not send out any distress calls before the crash which the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate,"Nocco said.

Halladay pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies and retired in 2013 after a 15-year career.

He won a Cy Young Award as best Pitcher in both the American and National Leagues, was an eight-time All star and amassed 203 regular season victories.

In 2010, he pitched a no-hitter for the Phillies in Game 1 of the National league Division series against the Cincinnati Red.

His feet came 54 years after Don Larsen threw a perfect game for the New York Yankees in the 1956 World Series.

Halladay recently bought the ICON A5 aircraft, the company said on October 12 in a news release, which quoted Halladay saying he had dreamed about flying a plane since boyhood.