It is a dark time to be a New England sports fan. The Celtics lost the series at home in a Game 7, and the night before, the Bruins lost the series at home in a Game 6. For the past three weeks, Patriots fans have been berated by the news of their coach, who has supposedly been cheating on his wife with an NFL reporter. The discussion today revolves around the last tragedy in Boston sports, the firing of Red Sox Manager Alex Cora and several other staff members.
In New England, the Red Sox are either your favorite team or your least favorite team and there’s no middle ground. Since the 2018 World Series win, the Sox have become the definition of average in the MLB. They are literally 0.507% since the beginning of the 2019 season. In Boston, this kind of play can only go on so long, and on April 25, 2026, Cora, along with five other staff members, was let go.
The team had just come off a commanding 17-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles and a series win against the same team. The firings were announced just after the series win and New England went up in flames, but surprisingly positive flames.
Baseball is a weird sport where you could have no coaches and the players could go out on the field and conduct business as usual, so I don’t think that this is going to be a problem for the Red Sox. They brought in the Triple-A coach to come and lead the team, along with filling some of the vacated side roles.
Even some of the players have recently come out and said that this might be a good change for the team, as any change could just be what the team needed.
“After Cora got released or fired, the guys got loose a little more, because I feel like the tension was gone,” Contreras said. “… I don’t know…When Alex wasn’t in the dugout, the team, was like [exhale noise], like loose. But it doesn’t matter. We have to play better,” according to Sports Illustrated.
My biggest gripe with the whole firing situation is that coaching has never and will never be the problem of the team. The upper management and ownership of this team are what led to the mediocrity of the Red Sox. They are cheap and have no reason to win because they get rich no matter what. Fenway Park is historic and amazing, and it is almost a guarantee that butts will be in seats, so John Henry has no reason to worry about his pockets getting lighter.
About a week after the firing, the Red Sox team store right across the street from Fenway Park had New York Yankees merch for sale. It is the biggest rivalry in all of sports and we are trying to make some money selling their team’s merchandise. And yet the problem seems to be the coaching?
While the players may think this is better for them, and who knows, maybe it is, the Red Sox will never be back on the path of greatness until there is a change in the decision-makers.
The Fenway Sports Group is the group that owns the Red Sox, a group that also manages several other professional sports groups. They handle the Pittsburgh Penguins, the PGA Tour and even Liverpool Football Club. All four of these organizations will make money for this group no matter what, so why is there any need to even better the team? Groups like this have taken over other teams, and it does not bode well for these teams, whose fans are expecting improvement.
The Red Sox have seemingly tried to improve, but until there is a change in upper management and ownership, the Red Sox will live in mediocrity.
Jacob Enscoe can be contacted at
jenscoe@kscequinox.com
