Alex Cora’s return to baseball could begin in Puerto Rico
Cora is suspended by Major League Baseball through the 2020 playoffs.
Alex Cora’s baseball career could be revived where it originally started: Puerto Rico.
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Cora, who was born in Puerto Rico, could be the team’s general manager or manager in the 2021 World Baseball Classic, according Jose Quiles, the president of the Puerto Rican Baseball Federation.
“Of course we’ll consider it,” Quiles relayed to Primera Hora, a daily newspaper in Puerto Rico. “We already know the work that he does. He will be considered as much for the general manager position as he is for the manager spot.”
Cora was the team’s general manager in 2017 when the club went on an unprecedented run to the title game against the United States. Though the club lost, 8-0, it was the start of Cora’s meteoric rise in the baseball ranks.
Cora is in the midst of a 2020 suspension for his involvement in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal as bench coach in 2017. As manager for the Red Sox, Cora also found himself in the middle of yet another sign-stealing investigation surrounding the Sox’ 2018 team, but he was recently exonerated of any wrongdoing. Instead, 30-year-old replay operator J.T. Watkins was held responsible for occasionally using the video monitor to steal other teams’ signs. Quiles believes that Cora was the scapegoat in all of this for a problem he feels is league-wide.
Cora is still held in high regard by the Sox’ front office. The Red Sox brass believe he deserves another shot.
“I do. That’s my personal feeling,” Sox CEO Sam Kennedy said. “He does need to go through a rehab process. What he did was wrong. He acknowledged that to us and apologized to us. I’m a big believer in second chances, so we all wish him well.”
That could certainly be Cora’s start to a new chapter.
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