Tears Of Joey M’S Rise And Shine Behind Their Emotional Second Baseman, A Player Who Rarely Hides His Feelings For Children, Friends

The room where Joey Cora changes into his work clothes each day is bigger than the Proyecto Sueno de Amor SIDA Pediatrico, a day-care center for HIV positive infants and children in his hometown of Caguas, Puerto Rico.

He had done a television commercial for World AIDS Day, and someone asked if he would come to the center for a visit. Before, he might have just made a donation. Private and guarded, a donation was more his style.

But Joey Cora’s life was changing and some of his ways, too. So he went - maybe something told him he should - and now there seems to be no turning back.

“The way these children are cast away, it’s tough,” he said. “They need to be taken care of.”

But for the 15 kids who are brought to the center each day, another 150 are not - victims of a lack of space, nurses, equipment. At sundown, the center closes and reluctantly - maybe even traumatically - the children are sent home.

This time, a donation wouldn’t do. So Cora mobilized sponsors in Caguas, and now each time the Seattle Mariners’ little second baseman slaps a single to right or beats out a bunt, businesses match the $28 which comes out of Cora’s own pocket. Next month, a concert and dance in Seattle featuring salsa singer Ruben Blades and the Latin stars of the M’s and Baltimore Orioles will benefit the center and Cora’s local cause, the Rise and Shine program for children with AIDS or with parents who have the virus.

“They are just children,” Cora said. “It’s not their fault. To see them - they come to you and they hug you and they look for love. You try to hide your emotions there, but when you get out of the center you understand how lucky you are, how blessed. You come out and you can’t help but cry.”

This is where we left Joey Cora, is it not?

Four out of five Mariners converts will tell you their most vivid image of Seattle’s wild ride through the American League playoffs last October was not Ken Griffey Jr.’s exultant smile from the bottom of that home-plate dogpile, or even Randy Johnson making his way to the mound for one … more … inning.

No, their most vivid memory is The Crying Game.

When the Cleveland Indians finally subdued Seattle in Game 6 of the ALCS, the M’s dugout emptied and so did Cora’s waterworks. He remained, face buried in a towel to catch the tears, consoled by young Alex Rodriguez - his left arm curled around Cora’s shoulders, his hand palming Cora’s head.

“Next year,” Rodriguez told his friend, “you and me are going to make it all the way.”

Sports is one long crying scene - from the tragic heartbreak of Lou Gehrig describing himself the luckiest man on earth to the roller-derby ridiculousness of Tonya Harding and her severed skatelace.

Forever in between now will be the tears of Joey, and how can we ever forget?

We can’t. We haven’t.

All winter long, the mail poured in - and still the letters come. The boxful waiting for Cora in Arizona when spring training began was only the beginning.

Would like to give you a hug … You’re the greatest … My wife’s in love with you … A real inspiration … Touched our hearts … Would you marry me?

Really.

His money is no good at the dry cleaners anymore. On the eve of Opening Night, he was the Mariner sought to bounce out the first basketball at a Sonics game.

At the Kingdome, the loudest introduction ovations now are reserved not necessarily for Junior or Edgar or Randy but for Cora.

Because he cried? Partially.

“I think maybe the fans look at me and think, ‘He’s just like us,”’ Cora reasoned.

“We wanted to win so bad and they wanted us to win so bad that they probably wanted to do the same thing I did when we didn’t win.”

Surely many of them did. So did most of his teammates, but they took their tears to the clubhouse.

But people have found appeal in Cora’s unabashed display of emotion - though he confessed that it was an uncharacteristic display. Cora is mostly stoic, his conversation clipped and spare except among friends.

“This was just something you had to let go,” he said. “We gave it everything we had. We had played so hard. It hurt when it was over.”

He wasn’t sending any messages with his tears, but a big one got through.

He cared. And he wasn’t the only one.

“Sometimes people think that because ballplayers make so much money, they don’t care,” he said. “I know the strike didn’t help. But that’s not true. It’s not true on our team and on a lot of other teams. People started to realize with our team that these guys do care, and they’ve given it everything they’ve got.”

They especially saw it in Cora, and they embraced it immediately.

Of the miracle Mariners’ everyday players, he had the shortest Seattle roots. He had signed just after the settlement of the strike for a paltry $350,000, or roughly half of what he’d made the year before, the last of four solid but mostly unappreciated years with the Chicago White Sox. Before that he’d been stuck behind Roberto Alomar in San Diego after making the jump from Spokane - where he broke into pro ball as a No. 1 draft choice in 1985 - to the big leagues with just a season in between.

When Griffey was lost to a broken wrist for 73 days, Cora was one of the unlikely sources of offense the M’s found to compensate. He hit a career-high .297 and gave Seattle the perfect No. 2 hitter when leadoff man Vince Coleman was acquired for the stretch run.

True, Cora struggled some in the field with a league-high 22 errors. He never really clicked with first baseman Tino Martinez, who liked to range far from the bag for ground balls and often left Cora with a moving target to hit. And early in the spring, Cora and Rodriguez reported to the complex hours before their teammates to take ground balls.

But what will you remember of Cora - his diving stop that bailed Bob Wolcott out of the first inning of Game 1 against the Indians, or the throwing error Cora made in Game 6?

Likewise, will you remember the bunt he didn’t get down against the Tribe - or the two times he eluded Don Mattingly that kept the M’s alive against the Yankees?

“I hope people identify with the way I play the game,” he said. “I’ll do whatever it takes - dive for a ball, lay down a bunt.”

That made him a symbol, he believes, of what the M’s were all about.

“We made history last year,” he said. “It was the first time a Seattle team did what we did. Everybody here was just waiting to explode, waiting to embrace a winning team, a playoff team. The dramatics of what we did and how we did it, it was just so different - winning games from behind, coming back from 13 games out or two games down in the playoffs, Randy pitching on a day’s rest.

“Those are things that captured everybody’s imagination. That’s everybody’s dream: being the underdog and winning.”

And, lo, here are the M’s again - picked by few to repeat in the A.L. West.

“I think we’ll win,” he said. “Yeah, we’ve lost some guys, but we still have the league’s best player, the best hitter and the best pitcher. We know we can overcome any kind of deficit because we’ve done it before - and I don’t think we’re going to be 15 games back again.”

Cora checks his rearview only when prompted - “last year doesn’t count in this year’s standings” - but all that mail and the media can’t help but make him look back.

He does so with fondness, and gratitude.

“It’s such a different feeling than when I came here last April,” he said. “The change has been amazing. Without what this team did and how the people have responded, I couldn’t do some of the things I’m doing now.

“I can involve myself and take advantage of the opportunity I have here to help people. People got involved with us - no way we do what we did without that support. Now I can use this opportunity to get involved.” , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 Photos (3 Color)

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THE NUMBERS ON JOEY CORA Year Team Ave. G R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB 1985 Spokane (NWL) .324 43 48 55 11 2 3 26 13 1986 Beaumont (Tex) .305 81 54 96 5 5 3 41 24 1987 San Diego (NL) .237 77 23 57 7 2 0 13 15 Las Vegas (PCL) .276 81 50 81 9 1 1 24 12 1988 Las Vegas (PCL) .296 127 73 136 15 3 3 55 31 1989 Las Vegas (PCL) .310 119 79 157 25 4 0 37 40 San Diego (NL) .316 12 5 6 1 0 0 1 1 1990 San Diego (NL) .270 51 12 27 3 0 0 2 8 Las Vegas (PCL) .351 51 41 74 13 9 0 24 15 1991 Chicago (AL) .241 100 37 55 2 3 0 18 11 1992 Chicago (AL) .246 68 27 30 7 1 0 9 10 1993 Chicago (AL) .268 153 95 155 15 13 2 51 20 1994 Chicago (AL) .276 90 55 86 13 4 2 30 8 1995 Seattle (AL) .297 120 64 127 19 2 3 39 18 Major League Baseball totals 7 seasons .268 671 318 543 67 25 7 163 91 Career transactions Selected by San Diego in first round (23rd pick overall) of June 1985 draft Traded to Chicago (A.L.) with Kevin Garner (infielder) and Warren Newson (outfielder) for Adam Peterson (pitcher) and Steve Rosenberg (pitcher), March 31, 1991 Granted free agency, Dec. 23, 1994 Signed with Seattle, April 6, 1995

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review