McAdam: Pledging that he's changed and humbled, Alex Cora returns for another stint with Red Sox

Alex Cora wasn't sure the phone was going to ring.

In baseball exile since last January for his role in the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal, Cora was home in Puerto Rico, focusing on his family.

He would watch games at night and kept a close watch on his former team, the Red Sox, and monitor the rest of the league. Baseball had been part of his everyday life since he was a child, but for much of the last 10 months, he managed to keep it at arm's length.

Then, a few days after the World Series ended -- and with it, Cora's season-long suspension -- he first got a text, then a phone call from Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom.

"I never saw that day coming,'' Cora said. "Honestly, earlier in the year, throughout the year, to be here right now, I never thought it was going to happen.''

His penalty served, his reputation battered, Cora returned to Fenway Tuesday, reintroduced as the Red Sox manager, just shy of 10 months since he and the Red Sox mutually agreed to part ways.

"It's been a tough year,'' said Cora. "I was spending time at home for all the wrong reasons. For that, I want to apologize. I deserve what happened this year. It was something I'm not proud of. I want to apologize to the organization for putting them in such a tough spot. I was humbled by this whole situation. I learned a lot throughout the year. I want to make sure that everybody knows that this situation is part of who I am. For the rest of my career, as a man, I'll have to deal with it. I don't want people to say that it's a great comeback story. I don't want that. I'm actually going to use this bad experience to make people better, starting at home (with my family).



"I know there's a lot of people that I disappointed and for that, I'm sorry. I'm still Alex. I made a mistake. I still love the game, I still love what I do and I promise you that from now on, I'm going to use the experience the right way. I'm not proud of it, I'm not happy about it. But we have to move on.''

Cora expected that a return to the game would not come immediately. He knew that members of the Red Sox organization had warned that he would need some rehabilitation of his image. But the more Cora and Bloom spoke, the more Cora began to realize that perhaps his return path might not be so long and winding.

"So soon? I never saw it,'' he admitted.

Even Bloom wasn't sure it was the right fit. He didn't have the history with Cora that others had. The two had worked together for a few months -- between Bloom's hiring in late October of 2019 and Cora's departure two and a half months later -- but never in-season.

"I really didn't know if, in my mind, he was a real consideration for the job,'' said Bloom. "I just thought it would be good for me, good for him and good for the organization. I thought there were a lot of things to work through even before we got to the question of whether he could be a fit for this job.''

What followed were "some really intense conversations.''  Once those took place, Bloom lined up Cora's strengths and weaknesses against others whom the Sox had interviewed. In the end, Cora's return struck Bloom as the logical choice.

But strangely, even as Cora asked for forgiveness and pledged to not repeat the errors he once committed, he wasn't ready to revisit his culpability. Asked if he knew at the time that what he was doing in Houston -- helping to devise an elaborate scheme to help Houston hitters know what pitch was coming through a series of noises and sounds from the dugout -- Cora, like Mark McGwire in his infamous congressional testimony, wasn't interested in talking about the past.

"I don't want to get into details about what happened in '17,'' he said. "It was a tough lesson. Like I said, all I can do is apologize, get better and move forward.''

Also, Cora was asked why he decided to not bring the system he developed in Houston in 2017 to Boston in 2018.

"I didn't feel we needed to do something like that,'' he said. "I know people will not believe me. I don't know. I just decided in that offseason to not bring it here. We had some conversations in spring training (in 2018). People were starting to talk about what was going on around the league. It wasn't worth it.''

Nor would Cora revisit what took place in 2018, when the Red Sox, too, were investigated for their own sign-stealing, resulting in some discipline by MLB, though Cora himself was largely exonerated. MLB found that some Red Sox players were utilizing video in the back room to help decode signs in-game and suspended staff assistant J.T. Watkins for the year.

"If you read the report, as a leader, we need to avoid the gray areas,'' said Cora. "Moving forward, we have to do a better job.''

In the short-term, Cora has to fill out his coaching staff (bench coach and bullpen coach are currently vacant) and give some input on the current roster and how to improve it.

But Tuesday was mostly a day to reflect on a return that, last January, and maybe as recently as last month, he never envisioned.

"I'm happy to be back home,'' he concluded. "This is the place I really enjoy to work. We're in a good place as an organization and it's time to move forward.''