As the Phillies settled into the visiting clubhouse at Great American Ball Park Monday afternoon, word spread quickly about an incident that happened at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.The televisions quickly were changed to news outlets. There wasn’t a player or clubhouse attendant in the room unaffected by the images – but there was one player who had a particularly visceral response to the images of the two bombs detonating along Boylston Street in the Copley Square section of Boston.
Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon pitched for the Red Sox for seven seasons. As the video of the second explosion was replayed on the clubhouse TV, Papelbon held his finger on the screen just above where the blast occurred.
‘I lived right there,’ he said, pointing to the top floor of a building where the popular steakhouse Abe & Louie’s is housed.
Papelbon talked about how special Patriots’ Day is in Beantown, with the Red Sox playing an 11 a.m. game that gets under way not long after the start of the marathon. Less than an hour before the first explosion, the Red Sox had celebrated a 3-2 win when Mike Napoli banged a walk-off RBI double off the Green Monster.
‘It’s all ruined,’ Papelbon said to reporters, before knowing that an 8-year-old was among those killed. ‘Families are ruined, lives are ruined. And for what?’
A moment of silence was observed in the ballpark before the game.
