Sox mismanage Cora hire
Astros incident, lack of info concerning
Red Sox fans shouldn’t be concerned that Alex Cora had a confrontation with an Astros broadcaster this past season on a bus from the Houston airport to Minute Maid Park.
But fans have a right to be frustrated with the revelation that the
Sox didn’t even know about the incident as they were considering Cora to be their next manager.
While the incident, first reported by Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston, draws an unsettling parallel with the David Price/ Dennis Eckersley airplane incident during the 2017 Red Sox season, it’s different in one very important respect: It doesn’t appear that what happened between Cora and TV analyst Geoff Blum, and then in Cora’s reported subsequent screaming match with Astros manager A.J. Hinch, had anything to do with on-air content.
Nor should Red Sox fans be concerned, at least for now, that Drellich’s sources indicate drinking was involved. As someone who spent several years traveling on charter flights and bus trips with big league ballclubs, I’m qualified to state these things happen quite often. The Price/ Eckersley incident, on the other hand, was a case of a star player verbally attacking a club broadcaster regarding stuff said on the airwaves.
But where the Red Sox look unprepared is in not unearthing the Cora incident during the vetting process after manager John Farrell was fired.
To his credit, Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said yesterday, “No, I did not know about it.”
Dombrowski said he relied on Hinch for background on Cora, and Hinch provided an in-depth scouting report on his bench coach.
Hinch and Dombrowski have a history. Hinch was a catcher for the Detroit Tigers when Dombrowski was the team’s president and CEO, and the two men have stayed in touch through the years.
Dombrowski told me he was made aware of the Cora/Blum incident this past Sunday night, when he received a call from Hinch. This was after Hinch had been contacted by Drellich, who covered the Astros for 21⁄2 years before returning to Boston to cover the Red Sox for the Herald and, later, NBC Sports Boston.
“A.J. called to tell me what (Drellich) was working on, and that he had never told me about the (Cora incident) because he just didn’t think it was an issue,” Dombrowski said. “He said, ‘I want you to know why I didn’t say anything.’ ”
Even if he had known about the incident, Dombrowski said, it would not have altered his decision to hire Cora as next manager of the Red Sox. This is partly because “I’ve known A.J. for a long time,” Dombrowski said, and he liked what the Astros manager was telling him. And then, in interviews with Cora, Dombrowski became confident he was the right man for the job.
And that’s fine.
But the Red Sox still should have known about the incident between Cora and Blum. Even taking into account Hinch’s explanation as to why he didn’t mention it — and, again, these bus-and-plane grouch-fests grow like weeds during the course of a 162-game season — you’d think someone in the Red Sox organization would have heard about it and brought it to the table for examination.
There’s also this: Alex Cora should have brought it up in his discussions with Dombrowski and other Red Sox officials. (I spoke with team president and CEO Sam Kennedy, who confirmed the incident never came up during the interview process.)
Cora, as an aspiring big league manager, likely would have been following the goings-on of other teams — especially the Red Sox, for whom he played. Had he known about the Price/Eckersley brouhaha, it would have been in his best interest to mention his heated argument with an Astros broadcaster.
This is a sensitive topic because the Red Sox have a spotty record in recent years properly vetting players in order to ascertain their ability to handle the Boston Baseball Experience. Had the Red Sox known what happened, they could have brushed it away with a couple of lines at Cora’s introductory press conference.
How? Here’s how: Have Cora address the Price/ Eckersley incident by saying something along the lines of, “I know things can be said in the heat of the moment. Look, I had a heated exchange of my own this past season with one of our broadcasters. It wasn’t pretty. But we talked it over and worked it out.”
Cora then could have entertained a couple of follow-up questions. He could have added that oh, by the way, he apologized for his actions that day.
And then the entire episode would have been folded into the day’s coverage of Cora being named manager of the Red Sox. After that, it would have been dead and buried as a news story.
This could have been swept away in November. Instead, it’s something Cora will need to address the next time he faces the media.