Blaine Newnham / Times Staff Columnist

Seattle loses a special person in Cora

Don't cry for Joey Cora.

He will be in baseball's playoffs, turning the double play with Seattle's other favorite former infielder, Omar Vizquel. He will bring an excitement and vulnerability to baseball in Cleveland, as he did here.

Cry for us.

"He opened up the heart of Seattle the way no other athlete has," said Janet Trinkaus, the director of Rise n' Shine, which works with children whose lives are affected by AIDS. "Seattle will not be the same."

It is simple to justify the trade that yesterday sent Cora to Cleveland for utility infielder David Bell. The Mariners clear Cora's salary, they get a strong, versatile player in return and immediately set the stage for rookie Carlos Guillen to play second base.

Bell is 25, Cora is 33. The Mariners didn't win this year with Cora. They need better speed and defense at second. Intellectually, the move makes sense.

But to suggest in losing Cora - as some have - that only older women will miss him is silly.

Why in the process of trading him do we need to denigrate Cora, or diminish what he meant to people in Seattle, to the game, and to the Mariners?

Perhaps no Mariner in such a short time - less than four full seasons - had more effect on a team and a community.

His is one of three most enduring images in Mariner history: Randy Johnson, thrusting his arms in the air after throwing a no-hitter; Ken Griffey Jr., smiling underneath a pile of teammates after scoring to beat the Yankees in the 1995 playoffs; and the crying Cora being comforted by Alex Rodriguez on the bench after losing the American League pennant to Cleveland.

He was every mother's child, every girl's kid brother, the touchstone in "You gotta love these guys," the player who made contact with the fans, who learned in controlling his emotions that it was OK to cry.

He cried and tried his way into our hearts, along the way hitting .292, solving the Mariner problem at leadoff, a solid and soulful contributor to the 1995 season, the one that not only saved baseball for Seattle, but made it popular.

Cora got everything from his ability. He switch-hit, he made as many great plays at second as horrendous ones, he drove in runs, he became an early mentor for Rodriguez, and he engendered a tremendous fan following.

He willed his way to first, the drag bunt in the 11th inning, avoiding the tag by Don Mattingly, setting the table for the double by Edgar Martinez as the Mariners beat the Yankees in the first round of the '95 playoffs.

"He's the heart and soul of our team," Rodriguez said in 1995.

In the end, however, he will be remembered around Seattle for his heartfelt contributions to a community, and to a maturity that harnessed a passion for a purpose.

The Joey Cora Children's Foundation raised $150,000 in two years. He established a daycare center in Puerto Rico for children with AIDS, helped a similar facility in Seattle and contributed to Image, which provides college scholarships.

He had a relationship with the kids at Crystal Springs School in Bothell. They gathered boxes of goods for the kids in Puerto Rico and he responded by buying $2,000 worth of Mariner tickets for them.

"We didn't just lose an athlete, we lost an ambassador to the kids in this area," said Miguel Colon, the president of the Cora foundation. "Kids, women, older women, grandparents, they all could relate to Joey. They loved Joey."

As a minor-leaguer in San Antonio, Cora learned how to handle his emotions. The hard way.

He argued during a game with fans, who later jumped him on the way to the team bus and nearly killed him.

"I was feisty," he said, "maybe too feisty. But for the Latino who arrives in the majors, you're young, and it's hard to control your emotions."

Cora did. He made the most of his passion, running out every grounder, showing his emotions when it counted, not afraid to cry when his team lost.

He took on the problem of children with AIDS because few others would.

"It means so much to these kids to have a celebrity recognize and help them," Trinkaus said. "I've already had calls from our kids wondering if Joey leaving means they will no longer get to summer camp, or to a Mariners game, or have someone who really cares about them."

A good question.

Notice that Cora doesn't wear the pins anymore?

Update on the above article! From "The Sporting News"...

Second baseman Joey Cora is waiting for a hearing with an arbitrator regarding a grievance he filed after being fined twice by the American League for wearing metal pins on his baseball cap. The fines totaled more than $10,000.

"I don't know what the big deal is," Cora says. "I'm not trying to make a statement or hurt anyone. It's something I started doing in 1994, and there wasn't that much said about it until this year."

Cora used to wear two pins, one a replica of the Puerto Rico flag, on his cap every day. While Cora says it is his way of showing how much he loves his country, major league rules prohibit anything being attached to a uniform.

Phyllis Mehrige, an AL vice president, says Cora had been advised during the 1995 playoffs that he would not be allowed to wear the pins beyond that season.

"We hadn't seen that many (Mariners) games on television and (the pins) didn't come to our attention until the '95 playoffs," she says. "Having them on was against league policy, but we went ahead and let him wear them through the playoffs."

Though Cora continued to wear the pins last season, it apparently didn't become an issue until midway through this season.

"Other guys started wearing them," Cora says, "and I got in trouble."

He received a warning from the league about two weeks after the All-Star break. He removed them for a while but put them back on and was fined. When league officials saw him wearing the pins again, they fined him a second time and said repeated violations would lead to a suspension. Woody Woodward, the Mariners general manager, says he talked to Cora about the situation.

"I told him, 'If you choose to be fined, then that's your choice. But what concerns me is you being suspended during a pennant race.' "

The pins have been in storage ever since.

"We don't want Joey's money," Mehrige says. "We just want everyone to follow the rules. The pins can be a distraction." . . .

Also, in case you haven't heard, Joey Cora's getting married! I'll keep everyone posted!

Associated Press

PHOENIX -- Joey Cora, who became a free agent after the World Series, returned to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday when he agreed to a $1.65 million, one-year contract.

"Joey has been a very valuable player for us over the last three seasons and we are happy to have him back in a Mariners uniform," said Woody Woodward, the club's vice president of baseball operations.

Cora, a 32-year-old second baseman, enjoyed the best offensive season of his 10-year career while playing with the Mariners in 1997. He hit .300 with 11 home runs and 54 RBI. He was also selected to play in his first All-Star Game.

Cora, who joined the Mariners in 1995 as a free agent, made $1,025,000 last season.

Under the new deal, Cora gets a $1.5 million salary next year. Seattle has a $1.8 million option for 1999 and must pay a $150,000 buyout if it's not exercised.