Rafael Devers Made His Long Awaited Return To Fenway Park Friday Night And In the End Red Sox Fans Probably Got It Right

In the end, Red Sox fans probably got it right. 

Rafael Devers made his return to Fenway Park on Friday Night. It was his first game at Fenway - a place where he is the career leader in home runs among all active players - since being traded last season. 

And he got booed pretty good. 

In his first at-bat back in Boston, like many other former players who have come back, he should have gotten some love from the fans he played in front of for years. After that first AB, you want to boo him as the enemy, go nuts. 

And look, as I wrote earlier this week about fans booing Wilson Contreras, you have every right to boo whoever (whomever? I always forget which one is right) you want when you plunk down your hard-earned money to go to a game. As long as you don't get super personal or vulgar (especially if there are kids around), or complain that some athlete cost you that crazy same-game-parlay, knock yourself out. 

You have the right to boo. Just like I have the right to call you an idiot for doing so. 

And yes, I think if you booed Raffy last night in that first at-bat, you're an idiot. Respectfully. And guess what? You can call me an idiot for thinking that! 

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Giphy Images.

But going back to last season and then the launch of Dirty Water - A Boston Sports Podcast, I've been consistent on this. 

• The Red Sox did a horrible job of communicating with Devers about the Alex Bregman move 
• Even when Bregman first got here, they sort of pretended he might NOT play third. Ha. 
• They told him to "throw away his glove" and just worry about DHing 
• Then they asked him to go learn a new position on the fly and play first 

By then he was fed up and said no thanks. Sorry, I get it. I'd have been pissed, too. 

Rather than work it out, John Henry took the opportunity to unload a contract that he never really wanted to give the player in the first place, and they shipped him to the Giants b/c the Giants would take on 100% of the money. And I'll go to my grave believing the money was the biggest factor in the trade. If he was on a 2/$30 million deal, they would have made it work. The trade was much more about the player's contract than the player. 

Once he was gone, the Sox had one of the weakest DH positions in the sport and got knocked out of the playoffs by the Yankees, largely because of the power outage the Devers trade caused. I have said some version of this over and over. Hogdale 100% agrees. Many of you don't. That's fine. But I have had this take for over a year. 

The fact that the Sox are headed to the playoffs 100% fueled the boos. But yeah, I would not have been booing him last night when he first came to the plate, and I tweeted as much. 

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Sox fans did not like my take. But as the headline says, I think they got it right in the end. 

After the inning, they showed a short tribute video for Devers. And this time, it was mostly cheers. And well-deserved. This was fair, and once the anger was out of their system, fans showed their appreciation. 

There you go, Fenway! 

Devers was a great hitter for the Red Sox and a huge fan favorite. At the time he was traded, he was probably the most-owned jersey or jersey T-shirt among fans. That didn't matter - just like it didn't matter with Mookie Betts. I would not have been among the majority who booed in the first inning Friday night. 

This must have felt good for Raffy. He did not speak in the postgame after the Giants' loss. His home run was not the most impressive of the night. 

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Nope, that honor goes to Wilson Contreras, who hit this mammoth 450-foot shot in the Red Sox's win. Holy shit. What a tank. 

Ironically, some fans have been booing Contreras recently for not running out ground balls on his sore hammy. I don't think there were many boos for this blast. 

All in all, a good Friday Night at Fenway Park for the Sox with one of their former players back in the Boston spotlight.