After meeting him at the OTT’s, my wife (a former Boro resident and GA at the school) and I discussed something similar to this. He really comes across as a guy who had his fill of adulation over the years and really just prefers to be left alone now. He still turns on the big personality for the kids, but otherwise keeps to himself.
One other highly accomplished athlete I can relate Bruce to is MLB HOFer Carl Yastrzemski. Long story short, my dad’s girlfriend grew up with Yaz’s kids and babysat them on occasion. My dad’s girlfriend was able to cash in a favor with him and arrange for him to sign a couple of things for us. He had just turned 82 and apparently wasn’t very happy about it but his wife Nancy convinced him to go with it. On the drive up, my dad’s girlfriend tells me about how he would leave every Red Sox reunion function early just so he could get home to have a steak and be left alone. Carlton Fisk and Dwight Evans would crack jokes about it all the time. He lives in a very inconspicuous house in a very small MA town and refused to leave the house while we were there. Nancy was super kind the whole time though.
