By TERRY LYONS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
BOSTON – Who amongst us, doesn’t deserve a second chance?
During the 1980s, NBA All-Star guard Michael Ray Richardson was thrown-out of the league for failing to adhere to the NBA’s anti-drug program but was later given another chance. A decade later, Richardson thanked the late David Stern who as Commissioner of the NBA was credited by the wayward star for saving his life by providing the tough love, then rehabilitation from a serious drug problem.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, substance abuse problems and the need for second chances became common place, unfortunately. New York Mets stars Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry each fell into drug dependency and abuse asa they were being built up by Mets fans as long-awaited superstars. They were given second chances by Baseball and New York fans and turned it around.
Former Celtics guard Chris Herren falls into the same category and now counsels youth against the pitfalls of substance abuse, as does basketball’s Vin Baker, who admitted to his fight against alcoholism and worked his way back, first taking a job as an assistant high school basketball coach in Connecticut in 2014. Afterward, he worked as a Starbucks coffee store manager in 2015, and now is back in the pros, working as an assistant coach with one of his former NBA teams, the Milwaukee Bucks.
Not all stories of rebounding for a second chance stem from drugs or alcohol abuse. Olympic speed-skater Dan Jansen was primed for possible medal contention in the 500 and 1,000 meter speed skating races at the 1988 Winter Olympics when – on the day of the 500 meter event – he received a call from his family home in Wisconsin that his 27-year old sister (Jane Marie Beres) was dying from leukemia.
Jansen attempted to speak with his sister by phone, but she was not able to respond. He was later informed of her death and he tried to compete but fell in the 500, distraught. Four days later, in the 1,000 he began with record-breaking speed only to fall again. Jansen left the ‘88 Games in Calgary with no medals and found himself unable to medal at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville.
Jansen made good on his third chance, when he trained and won a World Championship in 1993 then took the gold in the 1,000 at the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer in one of the most heartwarming and remarkable stories of USA Olympic Games history.
Again, along the lines of the remarkable is the story of Seabiscuit, one of the greatest thoroughbred race horses of all-time.
“In 1938, the year’s No. 1 newsmaker was not FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. Nor was it Lou Gehrig or Clark Gable. The subject of the most newspaper column inches in 1938 wasn’t even a person. It was an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse named Seabiscuit,” wrote Laura Hillenbrand in Seabiscuit, An American Legend.
In 2003, Seabiscuit’s story was transformed into an Academy Award nominated film (Best Picture), based on the best-selling book by Hillenbrand. Directed by Gary Ross and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, among others, Seabiscuit is in my personal Top 3 and it is my No. 1 favorite “sports” motion picture of all-time.
As we’re delving into “second chances,” Seabiscuit leads the pack when you study the true-life story of an undersized and overlooked thoroughbred whose unexpected success made him “the people’s favorite” and a true sign of hope for the masses in the USA during the Great Depression.
Seabiscuit is also the story of how three men — Charles Howard, Tom Smith, and Red Pollard — overcome personal limitations, demons, and tragedies, as well as economic hard times to bring about Seabiscuit’s thrilling and inspiring victories. The horse was sold to Howard for $8,000 at a Saratoga auction after being trained to lose to would-be greater racehorses. And, lose he did to the point where he was disregarded and discarded.
“You don’t throw a whole life away because he’s banged up a little,” Seabiscuit’s owner Charles Howard said, echoing Tom Smith, then adding later: “Sometimes all somebody needs is a second chance. A lot of people out there know what I mean.”
“You know, everybody thinks we found this broken-down horse and fixed him,” said Pollard, the over-sized jockey played by Tobey Maguire in the film. “But we didn’t. He fixed us; every one of us. And I guess in a way, we kinda fixed each other too.”
That brings us to the 2021 Boston Red Sox baseball season and the second chance being provided to Sox Manager Alex Cora.
There’s “no rooting in the press box,” of course, but even “Tick Tock McLaughlin” would be making his “Lazarus of Bethany” references as it pertains to the vaunted Sox organization placing new trust in Cora after his dismissal and one-year suspension for his center stage effort in the Houston Astros cheating scandal.
In January 2020, the Red Sox and Cora mutually agreed to parting ways after the Astros scandal cost the jobs of Houston GM Jeff Luhnow and team Manager A.J. Hinch. In the COVID-19 limited 2020 season Ron Roenickefilled in nicely for the Sox, but on November 6, 2020 – not long after Mookie Betts and the LA Dodgers were crowned World Champs – Cora was re-hired and signed to a two-year contract by Boston.
While a 108-54 record with the Sox this season is not to be, Red Sox fans and the few veteran players left from the record-setting 2018 season will be supporting Cora in a big way.
The reason?
While Americans enjoy building up heroes then knocking them down, the story isn’t complete and a fan isn’t satisfied until that broken hero gets his/her second chance.
That’s the case this season with Cora and the Sox, although he must now help rebuild the club, rather than rejoice in 100+ wins alongside the likes of Betts, David “Big Papi” Ortiz, Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts.
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