RACE FOR THE CROWN
Cora, Roberts lead teams in 1st minority WS matchup
The day before the World Series Game 1 lineups are revealed, before Chris Sale throws the first pitch, and before Hall of Famebound Clayton Kershaw throws his first-ever pitch ever at Fenway Park, take a moment to acknowledge a different kind of first.
Note that neither of the series’ managers, Alex Cora of the Red Sox and Dave Roberts of the Dodgers, are white: Cora is from Puerto Rico and Roberts is halfblack, half-Japanese.
The non-Cauca- sian complexion of the two managers is a first for a World Series, and to point it out is not an injection of race in sports: It’s a celebration of many races in all sports.
“It should be celebrated, I do believe so, I do,” said Cora yesterday in the Red Sox dugout. “I don’t think it should be the topic of the World Series but it’s part of it.”
Factor in, too, that this is a matchup that kicks off in a ballpark with a newly named “Jersey Street” instead of “Yawkey Way,” and a matchup between the standard-setter in integration (the Dodgers) and the laggard in integration (the Red Sox), and you have more reminders that the discussion about race in the U.S. is far from over.
Cora, for one, is happy to keep that talk alive.
“We talked about it with the Jersey Street change — there’s a history there,” said Cora. “What the Yawkey family and the Yawkey Foundation have done through the years, that’s been amazing. History has two sides, a good one and a bad one. It’s what you do with history. You learn from it, whether it’s positive or negative and I think we’ve done an outstanding job turning the page.”
At the moment, Cora is consumed with devising a battle plan to top Roberts and the Dodgers. But in his first season as the first minority manager in Red Sox history, Cora has not shied away from or forgotten who he is and where he is from. He spoke out last month and called President Donald Trump’s tweet that the Democrats were inflating the death toll from Hurricane Maria “disrespectful.”
Cora understands Red Sox history and he understands U.S. history. Just because he’s been tied up since January getting this team to this point does not mean he has shed or forgotten his identity is wrapped up in more than a baseball uniform.
“I’ve been pausing and reflecting the whole season — I just don’t limit myself,” said Cora. “I know what it means for us, I know what it means to my colleagues who are minorities. I’ve got so many texts, so many people telling me ‘I’m so proud’ and ‘this is going to open the door’ — I don’t know, man. I don’t know if that’s going to happen because in the end I’m not the owner of the team and they’re going to hire people they feel that are capable. It’s a big platform, and this platform is not only to manage these men to the World Series, there’s other stuff that comes into play.
“We saw it a month ago, and you saw the reaction when I talked about what happened back home with Trump. I was just defending my country, man. I said, ‘I respect Mr. Trump, I know they did a lot but was that enough?’ I don’t know. But I had to. It’s a huge platform. I represent a lot of people on this platform. It’s great, I accept the challenge.”
Cora would not be the first Latino skipper to win a World Series — Ozzie Guillen of the White Sox won in 2005 — and Roberts would not be the first African-American manager to earn a ring — Cito Gaston won back-to-back titles in 1992-93.
But in a sport that was not integrated on the playing field until 1947 by Jackie Robinson, there was not a Latino manager until 1969 (Preston Gomez, Padres) and it took until 1974 for an African-American manager to be hired (Frank Robinson, Indians).
Tomorrow night Cora and Roberts, former Dodgers teammates, will shake hands at home plate in a stadium on Jersey Street during team introductions.
“It’s symbolic,” said Cora. “Nobody thought Dave Roberts was going to be the guy over there and he got the job and he’s doing an outstanding job.”
Cora has spoken out before about the challenges of Latinos getting managerial jobs.
“I said it many times before I got hired, the whole process is a tough one because you have to interview a minority (according to MLB rules) — if I’m an owner, I interview who I really want, who I feel is capable of running the team,” said Cora. “I don’t limit myself, I don’t say ‘I’m a proud Puerto Rican.’ I know I’m a minority but I see myself as somebody capable of running a bigleague team.
“I think the process is a tough one. There are a lot of capable guys. You go through it. Like Omar Minaya, he talks to me a lot. He says, ‘You’re managing but the best manager in the Cora family, he’s coaching third for the Pirates (Cora’s brother Joey).’ Whatever — Sandy Alomar, there are a lot of guys throughout the years, people think that they’re capable and they’re not managing at this level.”