Alex Cora spent the last year on the sidelines after a suspension for his role in the Houston Astros sign theft scandal. Now, sitting in her manager’s seat with the Boston Red Sox after the team gave her a second chance to lead, Cora sinks in every moment of returning to spring training.
“This is where I wanted to be. This is where I am,” Cora said last week. “I love it 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, his first season in the Fenway Park director’s seat. When Boston fired Cora after the Astros ’garbage disposal program was unblocked, many Red Sox players expressed their disappointment that Cora would stop being their coach.
“He’s someone we all enjoyed playing for, and I loved sitting down and having a good conversation with him, when it comes to baseball,” Xander Bogaerts said last January. “He’ll be someone we’ll miss a lot, especially me.”
If there were any doubts about whether the Red Sox clubhouse would embrace Cora after the sign theft scandal, those questions were quickly answered in the early days of spring training.
“You know everything we’ve been through, winning the World Series in 2018, I just feel glad he’s back,” pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez said. “It’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 it. We’ll improve it.”
Even when Cora didn’t manage the Red Sox, Chris Sale said he maintained regular communication with the boss, especially when he began his rehab 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 clubhouse, Sale is known as a leading figure who brings an old-school approach to the game (who is regularly seen wearing a “All me, PED free” T-shirt) and who doesn’t talk 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 runs the program, he’s the one who puts the lineups in, he makes pitching changes and he has that confidence in knowing he has his back to the end.”
This year, Cora brings accumulated enthusiasm and excitement for the season for baseball that she wasn’t able to channel as she watched the games from her couch instead of the dugout, which she hopes can help Boston avoid a repeat of the game. last place of 2020 to finish in the American East League.
“I’ll do it the same way I did at 18 and 19,” Cora said. “Confident, with conviction and trying to position these guys to be successful. That’s the way I know how to do it. That’s what I do, and let’s see where it takes us.”