Quiet man Cordero came to his teams carrying a lot of baggage. After being convicted of hitting his wife with a telephone on June 9, 1997, he faced intense fan hatred and struggled to find acceptance. He also had to undergo mandatory Saturday counseling, preventing him from playing in Saturday day games, and frequently traveled to Puerto Rico to fight for custody of his children.
Unable to live with the public relations nightmare, the Boston Red Sox dealt him at the end of that year to the Chicago White Sox, who later sent him to the Cleveland Indians.
Yet thanks to a patient approach to hitting and an ability to put the ball in play, the man described by manager Charlie Manuel as “a professional hitter” managed to stay employed. Teams were attracted by his flexibility as a fielder as well as his bat, as Cordero plays third base and the outfield with equal indifference. His throwing arm was so weak that even the lumbering Mo Vaughn scored from second on a hard single to left field on one occasion.