Timing of Red Sox Alex Cora hire proves they know it’s indefensible

Yankees fans are going to have to deal with Alex Cora again in 2021 and beyond, and the Red Sox have no shame.

The Boston Red Sox have done the thing we all expected them to do since the very day they hired his replacement, and Alex Cora is officially back as the team’s manager after a 60-game hiatus as of Friday morning.

During that shortened season, Yankees fans got their laughs in as the Sox flopped with Ron Roenicke in the dugout, but every single one of us had a sneaking suspicion that as soon as his suspension evaporated, the team would move to bring back their twice-cheating ex-skipper.

On Friday, that vision came true, as Jon Heyman announced the news while America’s attention was definitely turned elsewhere, about 15 minutes after Joe Biden pulled ahead in Pennsylvania in the presidential race.

You truly cannot make this stuff up.

News dumps of this magnitude don’t come around everyday. This is truly special, Hall of Fame stuff.

Cora did his part, tweeting several weeks ago in a way that would make it seem as if he’d been offered the job long before he was technically eligible to return to MLB. Of course, Boston had to wait until after the World Series to make the hire official, but they didn’t have to do this early Friday walk of shame.

Of course, the news came out in bits and parts. First, we heard that the team had “reached out” to Cora for a friendly chat. Interesting! Then, Cora was one of five finalists for the job. Among the other “finalists” (who were totally being considered this entire time) were Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza and former Tiger Don Kelly, who reportedly took multiple interviews. Now, it seems as if those were one-question interviews: “Can you keep a secret?”

Then, last week, we heard about the team brass flying to Puerto Rico to ask Cora a few questions, which I assume were, “You still got that video room assistant’s phone number? Can we bring him back, too?”

Even if you believe that Cora deserved a second chance, you have to admit that announcing the controversial hire about 15 minutes after the presidential race flipped on its head proves the Red Sox knew they were doing something that would be rightly despised.

Also, if you believe that Cora deserved a second chance one year later with the same organization like nothing had changed, then you’re simply absolutely wrong.

You’re going to read a lot of messy Cora rehab these next few weeks. In fact, it’s already starting.

Laughable. Literally what is that?

The bottom line here is that the Boston Red Sox decided to bring Alex Cora back about five minutes after they fired him for his sins in Houston (and pretended his sins in Boston never happened), then they pulled the trigger on the “send out the Heyman PR tweet” button about 15 minutes after the nation either celebrated or bemoaned a massive shift in American politics.

Never, ever, ever let them forget how embarrassing this was.

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