Today is the 30th anniversary of Bucky Dent's famous 3-run homer that gave the New York Yankees a victory over the Boston Red Sox in a one game playoff..Prelude
On July 19th, the defending champion Yankees found themselves 14 games behind Boston...four days later, Billy Martin was fired as manager and replaced by Bob Lemon...soon thereafter, the Yankees got on a hot streak...by Thursday, September 7th, the Yankees trimmed that 14 game deficit to only four games as they headed to Fenway for a four game series against Boston...what occurred over the next four games is known as the Boston Massacre as the Yankees swept all four games and outscored Boston 48-9...
The Yanks built a 3.5 game lead, but Boston won 10 of their last 12 games as both teams finished the season 99-63...that set up a one-game playoff at Fenway Park...the winner of the game would have to fly to Kansas City to take on the Royals in the ALCS the next night...
The Game
What makes this game even more brilliant is that it was played in mid-afternoon...in today's time, a game of this magnitude would be played during prime time television at like 9:00...
The Yankees sent Ron Guidry to the mound with a 24-3 mark while Boston had Mike Torrez start...just 1 year earlier, Torrez helped the Yankees win the 1977 World Series...
Going into the top of the 7th, Boston held a 2-0 lead...with two outs and two men on, light hitting Bucky Dent stepped to plate against Torrez...Dent was not known as a home-run hitter — he hit just 40 in 12 years in the major leagues...Dent connected with a badly hanging breaking ball thrown by Torrez and hit a fly ball to left that just cleared Fenway Park's Green Monster...since the event, Red Sox fans have held a great deal of animosity toward Dent, and gave Dent a profane nickname usually printed for public consumption as "Bucky (Fucking) Dent" or reduced to a middle initial as Bucky "F." Dent.
Yankees broadcaster Bill White provided the call of the home run on WPIX-TV:
“ Deep to left! Yastrzemski will not get it -- it's a home run! A three-run home run for Bucky Dent and the Yankees now lead it by a score of three to two!
Going into the 9th, with the score 5-4, Boston made one last push...after Dwight Evans flied out, Rick Burleson walked...the most often forgot play of the game took place next...up came Jerry Remy who hit a fly ball to right, but because of the intense late day sunlight, right fielder Lou Piniella lost the ball, but instead of acting like he couldn't see it, Piniella pretended he had a beat of the ball...this duped Rooster Burleson from advancing all the way to third...because of Piniella's smart thinking, the Red Sox did not have the tying run at third with only 1 out...the next batter, Jim Rice flied to right, which would have probably scored Burleson...
The game ended when Carl Yastrzemski popped to Graig Nettles at third to end the game and break the hearts of every Red Sox fan...the Yankees went on to win the World Series with Dent being named the Series MVP...
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