BOSTON — In the quiet of the cramped home clubhouse at Fenway Park, the two televisions that were switched on late Wednesday morning showed the same reality show featured on TVs at countless sports bars and homes throughout Greater Boston: Sports hero turned criminal, found guilty of murder.

Shane Victorino, a veteran outfielder with the Red Sox, sat as his locker and stared at the images of Aaron Hernandez, handcuffs on, and said to the clubhouse staff who surrounded him – each member riveted to the television – “How does that happen?”

Hernandez, a one-time star tight end for the New England Patriots, had just been convicted of first-degree murder in the June 2013 killing of Odin Lloyd, a semiprofessional football player who had been dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancee. The verdict by the Fall River, Massachusetts, jury carried an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.

It capped a stunning fall for Hernandez, who caught a touchdown pass thrown by Tom Brady in the 2012 Super Bowl and shortly afterward signed a contract extension worth $40 million. It also gave this sports-crazed town – where the local teams and the athletes who play for them have an outsized presence in day-to-day life – another cause to take stock.

“The people here, they live and die by the four major teams,” said Mike Marvelle, a native of nearby Quincy who now lives in Newport, Rhode Island.

Wednesday, then, provided an odd mix of the elements so many people feel so passionately about here. The first-place Red Sox hosted the Washington Nationals on a gorgeous day, and Fenway Park hummed. But the TVs at the Boston Beer Works, across Brookline Avenue from the ballpark, showed the live, local coverage of Hernandez’s conviction. Sports radio immediately turned its talk away from the Red Sox’s fast start to live audio from the courtroom, where Lloyd’s mother told the court, “Odin was my only son. Odin was the backbone of the family. Odin was the man of the family.”

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Only two hours later, in the middle of the Red Sox game, the entire city paused – at precisely 2:49 p.m. – to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, an event that further defined this city’s relationship with sports. Just before the top of the fourth inning, Fenway fell silent for 30 seconds as the Red Sox players stood in the field and faced the American flag in center, flying at half-staff.

“We’re fortunate that we play in front of a fan base that is so in-tune with every team, the way they not only pay attention but react positive or negative,” Red Sox Manager John Farrell said. “They’re passionate. I think we, as Red Sox, are so fortunate to be part of the fabric of this city in the connection that was even galvanized further two years ago.”

Into this mix came the Hernandez case, one in which a 25-year-old player on the rise for a team that annually competes for championships shockingly altered not only his own life and career and devastated Lloyd’s family but also how New England relates to its athletes.

Hernandez turned 23 during the 2012 season, his third in the NFL, by which time he already had 18 touchdown catches and had become one of Brady’s most reliable targets. But the following June, police searched Hernandez’s home as part of their investigation into Lloyd’s murder. Boston’s sports fans – emboldened by Red Sox World Series titles in 2004 and ’07 (with another on the way in 2013), a Celtics championship in 2008, three Patriots Super Bowl titles to that point and a Bruins Stanley Cup championship in 2011 – grappled with a more complicated reality.

“People come here to play the game from all over the country,” said Tom Meharg, 66, a native of the suburb of Melrose, who now lives in Reading and arrived at Fenway wearing a Patriots hat. “You don’t know what they’re like. Sometimes it’s a lot for somebody to have that much fame thrust upon them. Some handle it. Some don’t. I just think it’s sad. I think it was handled well. I think the Patriots are no worse off without him.”

In a news conference outside Bristol Superior Court in Fall River – about 50 miles south of Fenway – District Attorney Thomas Quinn said of Hernandez, “The fact that he was a professional athlete meant nothing in the end.”

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That applied in court, and it seems to apply among New England fans. The Patriots cut Hernandez shortly after his arrest and offered fans the opportunity to exchange their No. 81 jerseys.

Just Monday, the Red Sox opened the home portion of their schedule by inviting Brady to throw out the first pitch. When Brady and Patriots owners Bob and Jonathan Kraft and Coach Bill Belichick emerged on the field, each holding one Lombardi trophy representing the Patriots’ four Super Bowl titles, they were welcomed as heroes.

“I think just like the Pats organization, most people have disassociated themselves with Hernandez,” said Marvelle, who wore a Patriots T-shirt to Fenway on Wednesday. “Just like Kraft and Belichick told the organization, ‘Don’t talk about it. We move on.’

“Fans have taken the same thing. It’s almost like we haven’t bonded with him anymore. We let him go. He’s not part of the family. I think that’s how people get by it. They feel horrible about the whole situation, but they just move on like he wasn’t an athlete that they looked up to, that their kids could look up to.”

Now, Hernandez is no longer an athlete, just a prisoner facing life in jail. He faces another trial, this for a double murder committed in Boston in June 2012. But as the hosts of the late-morning show on sports radio giant WEEI said before they sent their program to Fall River for live coverage, “By then, the buzz will be gone, and no one will care about him.”


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