That was the first sign that it wasn’t a normal day at the ballpark. That Cora’s answers to perfunctory questions were brief and said in a low tone was another.

Alex Cora walked into the interview room above the clubhouse at Fenway Park on Sunday morning wearing a University of Miami T-shirt, not the usual Red Sox sweat shirt he favors.

“We’re good?” Cora said, before rising quickly from his chair and walking out of the room.

For a man who loves to talk about baseball, it was completely out of character.


Then we found out why. Late Saturday night, 16-year-old Ari Arteaga was killed in Miami when he lost control of his Jeep Wrangler and it struck a concrete utility pole. His girlfriend, Indira Rambarran, suffered what police said were incapacitating injuries.

Ari Arteaga is the son of University of Miami associate head coach J.D. Arteaga, Cora’s best friend. They played together at Miami for three seasons and have been close since.

When Cora arrived at Miami from Puerto Rico, he was a skinny kid who didn’t speak much English. The Arteaga family treated him like another son.

“They adopted me, basically,” Cora said.

Cora went on to play in the majors and work for ESPN and is now managing the best team in baseball. Arteaga gave up on his playing career after a few years in the minors and has been on the Miami coaching staff since 2003. He’s a Hurricanes’ institution, respected throughout the college game.

Through personal and professional accomplishments and letdowns, they’ve maintained a bond that started 25 years ago.

At Miami, Hurricanes baseball is much more of a family than a program. When coach Jim Morris retired after 25 seasons, Arteaga helped plan a tribute that Cora attended before spring training this season.


“Ari grew up in our ballpark,” Morris told the Miami Herald.

Most of the Red Sox players knew about the tragedy before the game.

Those who had not found out when Cora wrote the initials “AA” on the front of his cap before he went out to the dugout.

“Just awful,” Blake Swihart said. “You could see he was in a lot of pain.”

Like so many of you, Cora is a parent who worries about his kids. His daughter, Camila, is in high school and will want a car soon.

“To go through the night and all the phone calls and everything that happened with the kid. God bless. He was 16,” Cora said. “My daughter is 16. I had the toughest call of my life this morning just to tell her what happened.”

Assistant coach Andy Barkett, a Miami native, also wrote Ari’s initials on his cap. His son regularly spends time around the Sox, and the news was devastating for him.

That the Red Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-0, offered some fleeting solace. Nathan Eovaldi threw seven sharp innings in his first start since being acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays.

Jackie Bradley Jr. made his latest stunning catch, a tumbling grab in the third inning that saw him cover 78 feet and 4.4 seconds to get to the ball. On the field, all was well.

That J.D. Martinez drove in all three runs didn’t seem coincidental to Cora as he thought of the pain his friend was going through.


“I had a joy watching our guys play,” Cora said. “It kind of, like, calmed me down.”

Cora answered a few questions after the game and even smiled a bit. But it was hard to keep that up.

“I’ve got to be honest, today was a tough day for us as a family,” he finally said. “What happened to Ari, I can’t even explain it.”

Most days, the Sox need their manager. This was a day he needed them.

“I’m glad we won,” Cora said. “I’m glad we were able to play, and I was able to relax. But it’s been a tough day for me.”

The Red Sox are off on Wednesday, and Cora will make a trip to Miami to console his friend in person. Then the pivotal four-game series with the Yankees starts Thursday.

“It puts everything in perspective,” Cora said. “We get caught up in this madness, the pennant race and the AL East and the Red Sox and the Yankees. You know what? At the end, it’s just baseball.”

Before he left Fenway Park, Cora posted a photo of his cap on Instagram.

“Family is family,” he wrote in Spanish.

Peter Abraham can be reached at pabraham@globe.com.