Rafael Devers spent 40 minutes staring at his locker

What an excellent exploration of writing and reporting, understanding what matters and looking beneath the surface.

I worked at Fenway in the 1987. I worked in the visitor’s clubhouse. When Kansas City came to town I was thrilled to meet two heroes, George Brett and Bo Jackson. Brett was a very nice guy. Bo was Bo. He had a minor injury, so he did not play the first game of the series. He played the second game, and he did not have a good night. The great Bo Jackson, who I had just hung out with in the clubhouse for two days, struck out a couple of times and made an error. When he came into the clubhouse after the game, he had steam coming out of his ears. He proceeded to go into out pantry area and took all his bats with him. He went in there and started breaking each bat by swinging it against a support beam. I was afraid Fenway was going to collapse. Wood was flying everywhere, and we were keeping a safe distance. One bat splintered and hit the guy who picked up the uniforms for dry cleaning in the head. He was bleeding a bit. A few minutes later I saw Bo writing him a check! When that part of it was over he came back out into the clubhouse and sat in front of his locker, just staring into it .He didn’t budge for well over an hour. My fellow clubhouse attendants and I quietly cleaned and did laundry in silence while Bo sat staring at the back of his locker. We were afraid to go near him, but we had work to do, and we wanted to go home. Both busses left and he was still sitting there. Finally, he got up and went into the shower. We still couldn’t vacuum because we weren’t allowed until the last player was out the door. He finished showering and came out and got dressed in quitely. It was very tense. This guy that we had been joking around with for two days was not happy and we were staying out of his way. The clubhouse manager, Dick Fitzpatrick (convicted pedophile), offered to give Bo a ride to the hotel since he had missed both busses and they both walked out the door. I worked with two other kids and when Bo and Fitzy walked out the door we all fell to the floor and started rolling around laughing. Bo was one of the biggest celebrities in the world at the time and we were very relieved that he wasn’t sitting in his locker staring at the back anymore. We were laughing and joking about it. We were mimicking him with the bats and laughing about how terrified everyone was in that moment. We were really laughing and yukking it up when the clubhouse door suddenly flew open, and Bo walked in! We gathered ourselves and tried to pretend everything was normal, but Bo was giving us the eye and we didn’t know what was going to happen. He walked over to his locker and picked up his wallet which he had forgotten. He looked all three of us and just shook his head and left, for good this time. The next day he came in and asked us what we were laughing about when he walked back in? Were we talking about him? He made fun of us all day and told all his teammates that we were clucking like chickens when he walked back in. It was pretty funny, and he actually was a very nice guy and it’s something I’ll never forget. He gave us each a $100 bill when they left town.

Sidenote, I saw quite a few guys staring into their lockers after bad games. Devers is not the first guy to do this.