Red Sox manager Alex Cora was one of the greatest in MLB last season. Does he compare with one of the most iconic coaches of all-time, Vince Lombardi?
Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora: skipper, strategist, cheerleader, motivator, friend, enemy (depending on the day), psychologist, risk taker. As a manager or a coach, you wear many many different hats. He is responsible for setting standards, giving the space for leaders to emerge, providing motivational speeches, and examining/observing his players and other teams. The unity of a team depends on how well (or in some cases how poorly) a manager can handle the mix of game strategy and people management.
One of my favorite coaches and the one with whom I think I’ve learned the most from was Vince Lombardi. He’s an iconic coach who transformed the world of sports. In many ways, Cora reminds me of Lombardi as a leader. Granted, the two coaches have very different approaches at times but you can also see similarities.
A skilled teacher knows when to motivate his players and how to motivate them. This was seen recently through Cora’s interaction with Eduardo Rodriguez. Cora observed E-Rod enough to know that he would respond to the tough love approach. This tactic requires a thorough understanding of your player. If you push him too hard or at the wrong time then you risk hindering his growth. On the other hand, if you only give him positive reaffirmation then you risk him plateauing. After publicly pushing Eduardo Rodriguez, Cora offered an explanation.
Alex Cora was asked why he gave Eduardo Rodriguez some tough love after is last start.
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) March 9, 2019
"Out of the five [starters] he's the only one I can do it," he said.
My first real glimpse of the power that a coach has in a professional team setting came from Jerry Kramer in his book Instant Replay. What Cora is doing in the E-Rod scenario reminds me of what Lombardi did with Kramer. Kramer speaks about his relationship with Lombardi and mentions he believes Lombardi pushed him harder than anyone on the team. He pushed him because he knew Kramer’s personality, he knew how he would react, he knew that the results would be worth it. The way that Jonathan Yardley explains the role of a coach holds true of a coach in any sport, a leader in any role whether sports-related or not,
"“Vince Lombardi thinks of himself as the patriarch of a large family, and he loves all his children, and he worries about all of them, but he demands more of his gifted children. He is a ‘psychologist’ or a ‘a child psychologist,’ and he knows how to build each of his players up to maximum performance.”"
Cora was an integral part of leading the team to be World Champions. He took virtually the same team, with a few adjustments, and brought out the best of their abilities. The Red Sox went from winning 93 games and losing in Game 4 of the ALDS under John Farrell in 2017 to winning 108 regular season games and the World Series the following year with a new manager. Cora set the ground for the team to have fun and be inspired. He created an environment that allowed for double-play hip shaking shimmy, the famous Brock Holt–J.D. Martinez home run hug, the game-winning dances, and the wall of wins.
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Similarly, when Lombardi joined the Packers organization in 1959, he took a losing team and transformed virtually the same team into winners. Maybe all that was missing for both teams was a change in leadership. Sure, the 1958 Packers differed from the 2017 Red Sox in the number of wins that the teams accumulated. Both teams had the talented players required. Both teams had failed to meet expectations when needed. Both teams lacked a sense of disciplined that is required of top performing teams. Both teams struggled to come together with a winner’s mentality. Kramer referred to Lombardi as the teams “most valuable player”. He credited him as making them champions because he forced them to think like champions.
In the same sense, Dustin Pedroia credits Cora for teaching him how to be a baseball player in his rookie days. Back 2006, Terry Francona set up the mentor relationship between the veteran player (Cora) and the rookie. It’s easy to see that Cora has always had leadership abilities. He was able to take a young Pedroia under his wing and help him gain confidence in the majors:
"“Everything I do in baseball, he showed me how to do”"
Both coaches have been known to give an inspirational motivational speech. Lombardi might be the king of speeches. Many of his speeches are still heard and used today. Upon entering the 2019 Spring Training, Cora decided that the overall strategy would be to build on the success the team had last season. He doesn’t want us to forget about what happened. He doesn’t want his team to start over. The 2018 Red Sox team held the perfect mix of unity, fun, hard work ethic, holding each other accountable, and a little bit of luck along the way.
"I think what we have to do is actually start writing a new chapter in our book."
— Red Sox (@RedSox) February 19, 2019
Welcome to the 2019 #RedSox. pic.twitter.com/8ITVu9SEUS
Were they both naturally born leaders or did they learn it along the way? I think it’s a mix of the two. Both learned from some amazing leaders themselves. However, there are personality traits that are needed for one to be a good teacher, these are traits that I believe you can’t learn. You either have them or you don’t. Lombardi and Cora are different in many ways, but the similarities between the two are undeniable. Yardley explains the power that Lombardi had on the Packers in his opening remarks. The words were written about Lombardi, but could also be said for Alex Cora and what’s he done with his Red Sox:
"“More than anything Lombardi made the Packers into something that’s surprisingly rare in the world of team sports: a team”."
Cora has been able to accomplish a lot in just a short year and I’m excited to see what the future holds for him as a manager and as the leader of the Red Sox. As fans, he’s made it clear for us not to have the same (unrealistic) expectations of winning 108 games in the 2019 season.