Earlier this year, Rob Gronkowski played a major role in securing the Patriots' sixth Lombardi Trophy. Last week, he also played a major role in nearly destroying it.

Gronkowski was among a number of Patriots players invited to attend the Red Sox Opening Day ceremonies at Fenway Park last Tuesday, when they were honored on the field and threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the home opener. Of course, the Super Bowl champs made sure to bring their well-earned hardware to show off in front of the sold-out crowd at Fenway. It was good theater.

But what fans didn't see -- at least until now -- is that Gronk went a little overboard while pregaming the pregame festivities and, as a result, he did some significant damage to the team's newest trophy. The Patriots' official Twitter account shared the story with a well-produced video on Wednesday.

It seems that the Pats players were getting their arms loose and warmed up for their first pitch duties when Gronk decided to step into the batter's box and use the Lombardi Trophy as a makeshift baseball bat. When Julian Edelman delivered a pitch, Gronk stunned everyone when he pivoted to a bunt position and successfully laid one down.

The baseball's impact with the metal football left a pretty large (but perfectly circular) dent in the trophy, which now wears the wound proudly.

If there's anyone can get away with doing significant damage to the trophy, it's probably Gronk. The tight end, who retired earlier this offseason, made one of the biggest plays of the game when he hauled in a red zone reception that set up the game's only touchdown in the fourth quarter.

As one of the best tight ends to ever play the game, Gronkowski probably didn't need to any additional efforts to ensure that his mark would be left on the Patriots, but it seems pretty fitting that he still managed to do so in the most Rob Gronkowski way possible.