Alex Cora bragged to members of the 2018 Red Sox about how the 2017 Astros stole the World Series against the Dodgers, according to Ivan Drelich’s new book. “Winning Makes Everything Right: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created the Game’s Biggest Disturbance.” The book, published by HarperCollins, will go on sale on February 14.
It details the Astros’ 2017 illegal-sign-stealing scheme when Cora served as Houston’s bench coach. The Astros defeated the Dodgers 4–3 in the seven-game 2017 World Series.
The Red Sox hired Cora as manager after the 2017 season. He led Boston to the 2018 World Series in Los Angeles in five games.
Drelich wrote that Cora and then-Red Sox bullpen coach Craig Bjornson, who served as bullpen coach for Houston in 2017, would occasionally meet with members of the 2018 Red Sox “in a late-night setting” for Astros signings. Used to brag about the theft plan. “Especially when he started drinking.”
According to Winning Fixes Everything, “We stole that (obnoxious) World Series,” Cora would say.
Drelik also included the following quote from an unnamed member of the 2018 Red Sox, “We knew the Astros had (stole signs) because Alex Cora told us. He said when he played the Dodgers, ‘Even before we got on base we knew what everybody was throwing. We got on base. Didn’t want to get down. And everyone was like, ‘What does that even mean?’
Cora, 47, served a season-long suspension in 2020 for his involvement in the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme. The Red Sox let Cora go as manager in January 2020 but they re-hired him 10 months later.
There are 109 mentions of Cora in Drelich’s book.
Dreilich worked as a Red Sox reporter MassLive.com in 2013. He was on the Astros beat for the Houston Chronicle from 2014-15. He returned to Boston to cover the Red Sox for the Boston Herald and then NBC Sports Boston from 2016–19. He now serves as a senior writer covering the business of baseball for The Athletic.,
