The Red Sox motto for 2019 spring training: ‘Turn the page'

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FORT MYERS, Fla. — Hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy, rolling down the streets of Boston in duck boats, and everything else that comes with a World Series title is all fine and dandy.

But if there’s one way to describe the Red Sox’s approach to the upcoming season, it’s “Belichickian.” The past is the past. They’re “on to 2019.”

At last year’s trade deadline, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman unintentionally provided the Red Sox with a rallying call that helped spark a championship run and a boatload of merchandise sales. Cashman stated that when the Yankees go head-to-head with the Red Sox, they “do some damage against them.” And thus, “Do Damage” was born.

Now that the damage has been done, and the Red Sox are world champions, Boston needs a new slogan for their 2019 campaign.

At spring training, the phrase you’ll hear manager Alex Cora and his players say over and over again is “turn the page.”

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Wednesday at JetBlue Park, Cora expanded on what he means when he uses that phrase.

“We saw it throughout the year,” Cora said. “They didn’t get caught up in the whole historic season. They got caught up in showing up every day and playing the game the right way and win games. That’s what it’s all about. We’ll be fine. The message, honestly, probably some you talk about turning the page, but honestly, do we really want to turn the page? It’s a book and we wrote our chapter last year and we’ll write our chapter this year, but we can always go back and see what happens and learn from that.”

Turning the page was a talking point again on Thursday.

“The way I see it is a continuation of what we did last year,” Cora said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that were part of what we did last year. We’re using a lot of information to put us in great spot to continue what we did. Like I said yesterday, the whole ‘turn the page’ thing — and I know, I came here the first day and I said ‘we have to turn the page’ to repeat. But if you think about it, people, when they talk about turning the page, it’s something negative. And there was nothing negative about last year, it’s just about yeah, turning the page, turning the year to 2019. But if we continue to stay with our process and with our principles as an organization, we’re going to be in a good spot.”

Red Sox first baseman and 2018 World Series MVP Steve Pearce used the “turn the page” mantra as well on Thursday morning.

“It was a fun offseason,” Pearce said. “And, you know, it was three months ago so we have to turn the page and get ready for the new season.”

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Don’t count on any “Turn the Page” merchandise being sold this year, however. I asked Cora if he believes it would work as a slogan for 2019, and he believes there’s room for improvement.

“Nah, we’ll come up with something better,” Cora said. “Over the course of spring training, I’ll repeat something so many times that somebody will pick it up and use it.”

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