Bostonians hate Bucky Dent. Now, they have a dent they can love. Rob Gronkowski may be retired. His antics, however, are still alive around the New England Patriots.
The man-child tight end and his teammates were at Fenway Park, guests of the Red Sox at their home opener on April 9.
The team brought the Lombardi Trophy along — that would be their sixth — and Gronk had idle team the Patriots awaited their introduction from a tent in left field. The Red Sox, meanwhile, were receiving their World Series rings.
“The first thing I remember is Julian (Edelman) like, ‘Hey, if I’m throwing out the first pitch, I need to get loose. I need to warm up,'” backup quarterback Brian Hoyer said.
As Edelman started to throw, Gronk took a stance with the Vince Lombardi Trophy as his bat. No one believed Gronk would actually swing, which he didn’t. He, um, bunted and …
“It sounded exactly what you think a baseball hitting the Lombardi trophy would sound like,” offensive lineman Ted Karras said on the team website.
Watch:
“You knew something was going to go wrong when you hand out the six Lombardi trophies,” defensive back Jason McCourty said, “especially one to Rob Gronkowski with idle time.”
And …
“Now, we’re all under the impression these are replica trophies, then we learned that indeed these were not replicas,” special teams standout Matthew Slater said. “These were the real trophies.”
Only fitting though that the lasting mark,” Slater said, “pun intended, left by Rob would be on a Super Bowl trophy, right?”
