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LOS ANGELES – Sunday's breakfast, the best day of Alex Cora's professional life, lived up to what you'd expect: the Los Angeles Hotel's chic ballroom, greedy servants, exotic proteins. The room was filled with Cora's baseball players and their families: children, wives, parents, random cousin, a niece or a privileged nephew. There was also anticipation in the room, it was the morning of the day when they all hoped to end with a victory over the Dodgers in Game 5 and a World Series Championship for the Red Sox. And one by one, perhaps feeling that it was their last chance, the parents approached Cora, the father's hands strained, the mothers seeking a hug. They came up with a version of the same message: "Thank you for the way you treated our son."
This is the culture that Cora set to become Boston's director a year ago, which made the scene both humble and a little sad. He wanted a team that feels like a family, a family of tolerance, diversity and inclusion. Given the transient nature of the game, he wanted to create an ecosystem capable of absorbing new members. This breakfast was proof that he and his players had succeeded, that what he had imagined had happened, and he turned a moment to his own family and told them – despite the chic setting – that it looked more like a summer league team high school than a group of big leagues hardened, cynical and stupid.
This explained the humility, but what about the sadness? Where does it come from? Would you believe the gratitude of the parents? This highlighted the fact that something special was coming to an end soon.
Cora was the star of the playoffs. The first Puerto Rican coach to win the World Series had to cope with the pressure of a regular season of 108 wins, but with extraordinary ease. Almost every move that he made was perfect. Even those he regretted, such as letting the starter Eduardo Rodriguez give up a three-run homer against Yasiel Puig in the fourth game, were concealed by the absolute dominance of his team.
"Everything he's done has worked," said pitcher Nathan Eovaldi, whose performance of the World Series folk hero was made possible by Cora's experiments. "He just has a way to make you believe."
Cora erased the lines separating the pitchers and starters, using Eovaldi, David Price, Rick Porcello and Chris Sale in both roles. Eduardo Nunez and Mitch Moreland, two of their hitting batters, made their mark. He placed Steve Pearce in third place in the most productive baseball training and saw him become an unlikely MVP of the World Series. He was sitting on third baseman Rafael Devers for the fourth game, having detected in two batting strikes in the 18 innings of the third match, signs that the rookie was outclassed. "For the first time, we have seen the game accelerate," said Cora. But he appealed to him in the most crucial situation of the fourth game: ninth inning, play at 4-4, runner in second place, and Devers lined up an RBI single that gave the advantage to the Red Sox. Cora's mastery was so complete that she began to feel routine. He added prognoses to his repertoire before the fifth match, predicting that Mookie Betts would come out of his prolonged slump in the World Series. The Betts scored a goal against Clayton Kershaw in the sixth inning to give the Red Sox a 3-1 lead.
At one point in the series, Cora was asked a strange question: can a manager be hot? "Nah," he said, waving his hand. "It's the players, they make a manager look good." And what did the players think? "He's everything," said Sale. "Alex is the man, he is the best."
When match 5 is over with the Sale benchmark Manny Machado, the Red Sox rushed to the field and rebounded into an exuberant clot of humanity. Cora took a first step up the canoe and headed for the field before retiring. He and his coaches turned one towards the other in the dugout and kissed each other, an adult celebration in a minor tone. Cora, more than anyone, seemed stuck between the worlds but welcome to both.
And so, at 20:32 PT, about 12 hours after his mind hit the shock of emotions in the hotel ballroom, Cora – the first Puerto Rican manager and fifth rookie coach to win a world series – stood on a raised platform and held the trophy over his head.
He moved from the podium to the shallow central field, where he conducted interviews in Spanish. He went to the shorter one and was arrested again, this time in English. He attended an after-game show after the other. He took pictures with his daughter Jennifer Lopez. Through all this, he was surprisingly mastered. Those who knew him best expected a less inhibited Cora; he encompassed his emotions under a flat exterior – unusual for such a dynamic personality – or so upset by the achievement that it had not yet been realized.
"Everything he's done has worked, he just has a way to make you believe."
Nathan Eovaldi, Red Sox pitcher on Alex Cora
"It was not as easy as it looked," Cora said later. "One hundred and eight wins and we knew it was not enough to play, we knew we would be judged by the playoffs."
Indeed, there is something almost pathological about a fan base that gathers in the stands of a baseball stadium or on the town square to shout "Yankees suck" a few minutes after his team won a championship.
The decisive moment moved away from the cameras, in the relative intimacy of the pavilion behind the first goal of the Dodger Stadium. The Red Sox had just lost the absurd match 3 in 18 innings and over seven hours. Eovaldi suffered defeat despite six heroic throws. His altruism moved some of his teammates.
Cora entered the club and summoned everyone. He looked at each of them and said that he was grateful for their efforts and proud to be part of their team.
"It was moving," said Xander Bogaerts. "In the end, we felt like we won the game."
When Boston won the fifth game, David Price answered all questions about his ability to keep his playoff promises. This is not the case for Clayton Kershaw.
Boston used its entire list to tidy up the Dodgers. Then the Red Sox partied in LA's field, celebrating what they accomplished together.
From the Wild Cards round to the World Series, we'll be covering the 2018 playoffs.
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The role of the manager has become less important in recent years. Its autonomy diminished as post offices played a more active role in the decision to play and under what circumstances. The manager is available, a glorified middle manager whose job is to build relationships with the players, to suppress the mutiny and to ensure that the organizing process takes place in the field. He is, in many ways, a spokesman for the team inside and outside the clubhouse. Cora's salary – $ 800,000 a year, one of the lowest in baseball and related to a round-up error in a team whose payroll exceeds $ 228 million – is the proof.
And yet, there is no figure to determine the importance of the manager's mind and how his humanity can embolden and inspire his players. Did he ask if he was angry with his players one day? In other words: is your calm exterior an elaborate lie? – He said, "No, I do not do it.I'm talking to them.If I have something to tell them, I sit with them.Packed, very laid back.I'm trying to. have good conversations. " Cora has been a staunch defender of Puerto Rico – and a critic of the Trump administration – in the wake of Hurricane Maria. (After Sunday's game, he declared that he would not engage in a visit to the White House, saying "we'll talk about it later.") He did not include that. a single request in his contract negotiations: that the Red Sox rent a plane of relief supplies. in his hometown of Caguas. He directed every World Series press conference – by becoming familiar with the cameras – wearing a different t-shirt with the same message: The Red Sox represented both Boston and Puerto Rico.
Everyone always wants to know about influences. Baseball, more than any other sport, is proud of its ancestors and mentors. The game can not be learned organically, but is rather a sacred text, or even a cherished family recipe, handed down from generation to generation to its most worthy recipients. Those who are anointed must reveal their sources. Who was the first to identify your gift? Who did you learn to manage the players? Give us the name of the shaman who first murmured your name and who shared the mystical secrets of the map.
Cora is often questioned about this, perhaps because of the rich cultural heritage of baseball in Latin America, perhaps because no one has more imagination. He deals with the usual bromides – he has learned something from every manager for whom he has played or worked – but there is one constant: he always finds his way to the winter of 2000 and the season that's up. he played for Sandy Alomar Sr. in their hometown of Caguas.
"The game will always tell you something," Alomar told Cora, then 25. "You just have to be careful."
The rhythms and secrets of the game – the way a pitcher crushes the ball in his glove before throwing a curved ball, the way a catcher carelessly lobes the ball to the pitcher with the runners at the bottom, the way a stop- Short cheat a little to his left or just after reading the receiver's signs – will reveal themselves over time. The attentive observer can feel the less tangible dynamic – how a player reacts to criticism, who is willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, what a team must hear after a devastating defeat. A complete picture will eventually appear. And when that happens, when you watch carefully enough for long enough to learn the many lessons, you may be able to tell something back to the game.
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