Alex Cora is Accused of the Biggest Cheating Scandal in Boston History, but You Wouldn't Know it From Checking the Local Media
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Big if true.
Assuming Jeff Passan is right and the man who was bench coach of the 2017 World Series champs and the manager of the 2018 World Series champs is facing an imminent year long suspension, that's a pretty newsworthy item, amirite? Worth mentioning anyway.
I mean, the sources on the stories about Cora's 2018 Red Sox team are former club employees. So it'd be safe to assume the Boston baseball media would be all over this like stink on a monkey. A championship manager potentially being suspended for a season? That's not just the biggest sports scandal to hit this town since BC was caught shaving points, it's a seismic event. So let's go around the infield and see what they're saying:
Peter Gammons is talking politics:
His fellow Baseball Hall of Famer Dan Shaughnessy (who I'm told was asked about the Sox on a Cleveland radio show, quickly mumbled something about them trimming payroll and then hung up), hasn't said a word since he was watching football last night:
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Pete Abraham was a high octane outrage machine when he was ripping Carrabis for reporting on Pablo Sandoval hitting on Instagram models in the middle of games. But this is all the heat his hot takes could produce on this one:
My former co-worker at WEEI, who does Sox games on the radio, is mad as hell. About the suspensions and the firings, not about the stealing-signs-using-cameras stuff:
The Herald's beat writer is at least stating the obvious, without editorializing about what a terrible stain this is on anyone's legacy or whatever:
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Huh. That's odd. If the last dozen years have taught us anything, it's that there is nothing that turns the sports media of New England into the moral conscience of the nation like the organization they cover being accused of cheating. No matter how little evidence there is or how little actual cheating was going on. And this is coming from two former staff members? Can you imagine if there were two ex-employees who had dirt on the team they used to work for, how excited the journos would get about the possibility of them talking? Their names would be household words. We'd probably even know their nicknames for each other from reading their texts.
More to the point, the websites would be filled with yottabytes of angry editorials about the arrogance of the coach. How he's smart enough to win without cheating but he does it anyway because he's an immoral, angry little man with no character. There'd be hundreds of vitriolic screeds about how the league has to step in and punish him and the whole franchise because enough is enough. There'd be pretentious editorializing about how the last championship is tainted and deserves an asterisk. Maybe even to be vacated altogether. And some would suggest that this is a systemic problem that runs throughout the organization and goes all the way to the top. So that the other owners need to step in and force this owner to sell.
I guess your cheating scandals get treated differently when the owner of the team also owns the biggest news site in town instead of a cardboard box company.
