It has been more than four months since Maria ravaged the island of Alex Cora's birth, Puerto Rico, nearly three months since Cora became the 47th manager of the Red Sox. As he was wrapping up negotiations on his contract with Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, club president Sam Kennedy said, Cora made one last request.
"At the end,' Kennedy said, "he asked for one thing. Not for him or his family. He asked the Red Sox for relief help for the people of Puerto Rico, and specifically for his hometown of Caguas.”
"If I have this platform and people can help us out, why not?' he said. "If they say no, they say no.'
The Red Sox had answered with a resounding yes, which is how it was that Cora found himself on a JetBlue charter flight in the company of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and a party of roughly four dozen front-office employees headed by Kennedy, assistant general manager Eddie Romero and pitcher Rick Porcello.
"A no-brainer,' Porcello said of his decision to come. The belly of the plane contained food, medicine and other necessities ticketed for Caguas, along with boxes full of baseball equipment that soon would be distributed among a waiting group of high school players who learned the game on the same fields on which Cora had once played.
Over the span of the next two weeks, JetBlue pledged to make room in the cargo holds of its regularly scheduled flights from Boston to San Juan for the nearly 10 tons of supplies collected by Cora and the Sox. The Red Sox Foundation also presented a $200,000 check to Caguas Renace ("Rebirth").