"RESTORATION OF THE MORAL ORDER":

Watching the familiar ritual of the winners hugging, high-fiving and carrying little children around the Dodger stadium infield after winning Game 5 felt like a throwback to a better time.

In the wake of the atrocity in Pittsburgh, I felt exactly like The Washington Post's Alyssa Rosenberg: "For a few hours Sunday night ... the final game of the World Series felt like America as it could be .... When our most basic rules are regularly trampled, even a tiny, temporary restoration of the moral order provides some warmth against the encroaching cold."

Of course, every MLB club's team picture these days looks like the United Nations: black and white, Dominican, Mexican and Venezuelan, and in Boston's case, Taiwanese and Aruban as well. But the Red Sox were also among the happiest teams I've ever seen. If there were any malcontents on the bench or in the bullpen -- as there nearly always are among highly competitive professional athletes -- they were impossible to identify.

Under the leadership of rookie manager Alex Cora, the Red Sox came to embody much of what's best about America: a passion for excellence, a personal and communal determination to succeed, and an unwillingness to be divided.

According to The Boston Globe's terrific baseball writer Alex Speier, the team's "remarkable cohesion" owes itself largely to Cora. Red Sox players unanimously praise his (bilingual) communication skills and his regard for them as individuals with lives off the baseball diamond. The new Red Sox manager didn't ask for a signing bonus before coming over from the Houston Astros; he asked for a planeload of hurricane relief supplies for his hometown of Caguas, Puerto Rico.

It's no exaggeration to say that the Red Sox and Houston Astros organizations provided more effective Hurricane Maria relief than the White House. Less bureaucracy, superior leadership.

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