Alex Cora was brazen about Astros scandal: ‘We stole that World Series’
Alex Cora didn’t exactly hide his sign-stealing ways – in fact, the alleged mastermind behind the Astros’ 2017 scandal bragged about them to his new team.
nypost.com
By Michael Blinn
Alex Cora didn’t exactly hide his sign-stealing ways – in fact, the alleged mastermind behind the Astros’ shocking 2017 scandal bragged about them to his new team.
Members of the 2018 Red Sox would listen to their new manager – along with bullpen coach Craig Bjornson, another ex-Houston staffer – discuss their scheme “in a late-night setting” and “especially when they started drinking,” according to Evan Drellich’s new book, “Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess.”
“We stole that [expletive] World Series,” Cora reportedly told his players, according to a Boston Herald transcript.
Alex Cora bragged to his Red Sox players about the Astros’ scheme, according to a new book.
USA TODAY Sports
The Red Sox manager, who was fired for his role in the scheme in 2019 and rehired less than a year later, allegedly masterminded a scheme involving cameras picking up catchers’ signs and relaying them to batters through banging on a trash can.
Cora led Boston past the Dodgers in the World Series a season after helping the Astros do the same in 2017 as Houston’s bench coach. The book detailed a tumultuous relationship between Cora and Astros manager A.J. Hinch that included screaming matches in Hinch’s office.
“We knew the Astros did (steal signs) because Alex Cora told us. He said that when they played the Dodgers, ‘We already knew what everybody was throwing before we even got on base. We didn’t have to get on base.’ And everybody was like, ‘What the hell does that mean?’”
The Red Sox were no strangers to cheating themselves, however, having been caught using an Apple Watch to steal signs under John Farrell in 2017. Replay coordinator J.T. Watkins was also suspended for a year ahead of the 2020 season for relaying opposing teams’ signs from the video room in 2018.
