Alex Cora surprised he landed another manager job so soon

Many were surprised that Alex Cora got his old job back immediately after serving a year-long suspension, and the Boston Red Sox manager insists he did not see it coming, either.

Cora met with the media on Tuesday for the first time since the Red Sox hired him back. He apologized for his role in the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal and said he knew he wanted to return to Major League Baseball but was thinking it would take “two or three years.”

“So soon? I never saw it?” Cora said, via Bill Koch of the Providence Journal. “I knew I wanted to come back to the game, but I didn’t know how fast. There was a lot of talk within the family. You put them first.”

Cora was painted as one of the masterminds behind the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scheme. He said Tuesday that he did not want to get into specifics of what went on but that he is “sorry.” Cora added that he doesn’t want anyone to view his return as a comeback story.

“This situation is part of who I am for the rest of my career. As a man, I have to deal with it,” he said. “I don’t want people to make this a great comeback story. That’s not what it is. I’m still Alex. I made a mistake.”

Cora won the World Series with Boston in his first year on the job in 2018. He probably benefitted from what Red Sox players said about him after the Astros scandal erupted. It also helped that Major League Baseball cleared him of any suspected wrongdoing in Boston.

Winning almost always trumps all in sports. Boston finished 24-36 in the shortened season this year, and Cora will be expected to turn things around. If he can do that, his role in the Astros scandal will seem like a distant memory to many.