Alex Cora has spent the last year on the sidelines after a suspension for his role in the Houston Astros sign theft scandal. Now seated behind her manager’s chair with the Boston Red Sox, after the team gave her a second chance to drive, Cora watched every moment of her return to spring training.
“This is where I wanted to be. This is where I am,” Cora said last week. “I love every second and I won’t take it for granted.”
Cora became one of Boston’s most popular sports figures after leading the Red Sox to a 2018 World Series championship, her first season in the Fenway Park manager’s chair. When Boston fired Cora after the Astros trash can was untied, many Red Sox players expressed disappointment that Cora would no longer be their manager.
“He’s someone we all liked to play for and I liked to sit and have a nice conversation with him, based on his understanding of baseball,” shortstop Xander Bogaerts said last January. “There will be someone we will miss very much, especially me.”
If he doubted whether the Red Sox club would embrace Cora after the fall of the sign theft scandal, these questions were quickly answered in the early days of spring training.
“You know everything I went through, winning the World Series in 2018, I feel happy to be back,” said pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez. “He’s like a father, like a brother. Sometimes I feel like a teammate when I talk to him and that’s part of the relationship we have together and we can improve. We’ll improve.”
Even when Cora didn’t manage the Red Sox, Chris Sale said he maintained regular communication with the skipper, especially since he was beginning rehabilitation after Tommy John’s surgery.
When asked to describe the impact of Cora’s return to the team, Sale invoked the words camaraderie, trust and passion. Around the Red Sox club, Sale is known as a leading figure who brings an old-fashioned approach to the game (regularly seen wearing an “All me, PED free” T-shirt) and does not speak in clichés.
“He wants to win, he does everything to improve himself, the coaching staff, the team, the organization,” Sale said. “Being able to have that confidence in the captain, he’s the guy who leads the show, he’s the one who sets up the groups, makes pitching changes and has that confidence in knowing he got his back to the end.”
This year, Cora brings the excitement and excitement of baseball that she couldn’t channel while watching games on the couch instead of digout, something she hopes can help Boston avoid repeating the last place in 2020 ended in the Eastern American League .
“I’ll do it the same way I did in ’18 and ’19,” Cora said. “Confident, convinced and trying to put these guys in situations to be successful. That’s how I know how to do it. That’s what I do and see where it takes us.”