BOSTON — There are books out there filled with famous last words, the best of which came from Union Gen. John Sedgwick, who said, "They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance" a few minutes before taking a Minié ball through his plumed hat at Spotsylvania in 1864.
Famous first words, though? Nothing on the library shelves by that title.
But there was Don Cherry’s introductory press conference as Bruins coach at [...]
BOSTON — There are books out there filled with famous last words, the best of which came from Union Gen. John Sedgwick, who said, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance” a few minutes before taking a Minié ball through his plumed hat at Spotsylvania in 1864.
Famous first words, though? Nothing on the library shelves by that title.
But there was Don Cherry’s introductory press conference as Bruins coach at which he said, in answer to a question about what fans could expect from the B’s: “As a player, I was a back-biter and a cheap-shot artist, and I expect no less from the players wearing a Boston uniform now.”
Those are first words worth remembering.
New Red Sox manager Alex Cora was in Boston Thursday fielding questions before the annual Boston Baseball Writers dinner. Cora is a personable, pleasant and quotable man — the polar opposite of his stoic predecessor, John Farrell, but he’s no Don Cherry, either. Cora’s first words before his first writers dinner (Bobby Valentine’s first was his last, you remember) were pretty measured and reasonable.
“My goal is, when people talk about the Red Sox, they say it’s a team that pays attention to detail,” he said. “They play clean baseball. I had a conversation last year with [Arizona GM] Mike Hazen about the Dodgers, about halfway through the season, and the biggest compliment I heard about that team — at the time, they had won like 38 games out of something ridiculous — and he said, ‘They don’t beat themselves.' You have to be on top of your game to beat 'em and that’s what I want from us, day in and day out.”
Cora is the latest in a long line of Red Sox rookie managers. Boston was known as an entry-level managerial posting for decades, but that had changed recently. Farrell, Valentine and Terry Francona all had previous major league experience. Grady Little and Joe Kerrigan did not. Jimy Williams and Kevin Kennedy did. Butch Hobson and Joe Morgan did not. How did they all work out? Francona was great, Valentine a disaster. Hobson was a disaster, Morgan great. So, there is no predicting the outcome.
Cora never has managed in the minors but did manage winter ball and found it to be a learning experience, something he can carry over into this season.
"For some reason, I wasn’t the manager I wanted to be then,” he said. “I was very serious and strict with the guys. I don’t think they had fun with me and I wasn’t having fun with the job. So, I promised myself, if the opportunity comes, as a manager, or whatever — I was going to enjoy it. And last year, regardless of the result, I was still having fun when we were down 3-2 to the Yankees.”
Cora was the Astros’ bench coach then. Things will be different as a manager, with different priorities.
“To connect with players is very important, to be approachable,” he said. “The game starts at 7:05 and ends up hopefully at 9:30, but during the day there is stuff that comes up and if you don’t connect with them, it’s gonna be hard to communicate.
“And it is very important to communicate. Not only with the players but with the coaching staff, with the clubbies, with the front office ... everybody in the organization."
This is not a brand-new approach. The totalitarian manager is a tree in baseball’s petrified forest and just ask Valentine about that. Even in the old, old, days, managers had some flexibility, like Joe McCarthy — an old-school dictator if there ever was one — whose rule was that his players had to wear neckties whenever they were in public.
McCarthy took over the Sox in 1948 and Ted Williams had never worn a tie. So, on the first day of spring training that year, McCarthy came down to breakfast with an open collar.
“If you can’t get along with a .400 hitter,” he said, “you shouldn’t be a manager.”
“There will be rules, obviously,” Cora said, “but the most important thing is for them to understand that we can have conversations but there’s a line. ... If you were to go to my phone two years ago, the music I have on my phone now is a lot different. I think it was the adjustment I had to make last year with the players, just to connect with them, try to talk the same language as them, and it helped.”
Having a .400 hitter on the roster would help, too, but that’s not going to happen, and Cora and the Sox are hoping that communication can fill that void.