Screen Shot 2013-08-21 at 9.12.55 PMRoy Halladay backtracked on comments he made on Tuesday:

“I felt like what was said necessarily wasn’t written. And I just want to make it well known that I have a lot of respect for Charlie. There were some articles put out that offended me and I’m sure offended Charlie. And I called him today and talked to him about it. We’ve been in a lot of contact. I loved playing for him. He was a great manager. Everybody here loved him. The players loved him. And he was a lot of the reason they won the World Series here. I just want to make that point clear. I was also trying to say that I feel like if there was somebody that’s going to replace a guy like that then it’s going to be a Ryne Sandberg type of person with the experience that he carries and everything else.

“But I really felt like a lot was lost in translation with respect to Charlie. I just want to make that clear. I don’t endorse any manager’s firing. The players get managers fired. Any time a manager is fired as a player you feel like you haven’t done your job.”

“Really, that’s it. I just want to make sure the air is clear there. I talked to Charlie and we’re good. But I wanted him to know that I really enjoyed playing for him and as far as managers have gone, he’s the best I’ve ever been around. I really enjoyed the time with him. At the same token I look forward to working with Ryne, too. Really, that’s about it. I think I saw one title that said I endorsed the firing of Charlie Manuel. And that really bothered me, so I just wanted to make sure we were all clear.”

This may be the most predictable clarification ever. I thought it was quite obvious that Halladay’s comments were more an indictment of the slug players brought here in recent years than Manuel. Yes, certain players – veterans or otherwise – seemed to be way too comfortable with Charlie. But you shouldn’t need a manager to tell you not to show up to the ballpark late. That speaks more to the players than the manager.

That said, Halladay’s comments weren’t taken out of context, because everywhere they were posted (and in this video) included his full quotes. What he said came out wrong.

As for those headlines? I couldn’t find any with the words “Halladay” and “endorsed” relating to his comments yesterday… but CSN seemed to add just a bit of fuel on his grammatical fire with their post:

Screen Shot 2013-08-21 at 9.08.43 PM

That headline. I think he was talking about that headline.