The Detroit Tigers’ loss is the Boston Red Sox’s gain.
Alex Cora interviewed for the Tigers’ managerial vacancy after the 2017 Major League Baseball season before ultimately interviewing with the Red Sox and becoming Boston’s new skipper. Clearly, Cora left a strong impression on Red Sox owner John Henry and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, but he apparently didn’t fare quite as well while meeting with the Tigers’ brass.
Yahoo! Sports’ Mark Townsend was given an opportunity to screen “Alex Cora: The Making of a Champion,” a 60-minute documentary set to premiere Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on MLB Network, and reported over the weekend the Red Sox manager reveals he “bombed” his interview with the Tigers.
“I did the interview, and on the way to the hotel I called (my brother) Joey and I said, ‘That wasn’t good,'” Cora recalled, according to Townsend.
It all worked out, of course. The Red Sox subsequently parted ways with John Farrell, opening the door for Cora to become Boston’s new manager — the job he really wanted.
“I remember that. I wasn’t worried about that one,” Joey Cora said of his brother bombing the Tigers interview, per Townsend. “That wasn’t going to happen. Don’t worry about it. This is just like batting practice. You got your feet wet this year. You took your swings. Now something else is going to come up.”
The Red Sox won a franchise-record 108 regular-season games en route to securing a World Series title in Cora’s first year in charge of the dugout. The Tigers, who ended up hiring Ron Gardenhire as their manager, went 64-98 and finished 27 games back of the Cleveland Indians in the American League Central.
