When ex-Houston Astros coach Alex Cora unleashed scathing critique for being grossly underpaid during 2017 championship season

The 2017 Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal shook the entire MLB, including many baseball fans and players. While many bashed the Astros for the cheating scandal, ex-Astros coach Alex Cora demanded fair compensation and said that he was underpaid during the 2017 championship season.

According to details in the book, “Winning Fixes Everything:"

“He totally disenchanted the coaching staff,” one member of the Astros said. “He blew up one day in the coach’s office with A.J., and said, ‘You expect me to do all this stuff for two hundred and fifty grand?’ And you know, all the other coaches are making, like, seventy-five grand.”

Cora was fired by the Red Sox and suspended by MLB for the 2020 season after the league's investigation revealed that he was one of the cheating scheme's architects.

Ex-Houston Astros coach Alex Cora: "We stole that World Series"

According to a Boston Herald transcript of an excerpt from the new book "Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess" by Evan Drellich, Boston Red Sox manager Cora, who served as Houston's bench coach in 2017, reportedly told his players in Boston in 2018:

"We stole that World Series."

Colorado Rockies v Boston Red Sox

The Astros dismissed A.J. Hinch after MLB's inquiry, and the league punished him for the entire 2020 seaso. He was later hired to manage the Detroit Tigers in 2021.

Alex Cora played in the MLB for 14 seasons with the Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, New York Mets, Texas Rangers and Washington Nationals.

Under his leadership, the Astros won the 2017 World Series and set a franchise record with 108 victories. He is the first Puerto Rican manager of a World Series-winning club and the seventh MLB manager to win the World Series in his debut season.