IT’S HAPPENED ONCE BEFORE

An Oct. 2 all or nothing showdown between the Yankees and the Red Sox

The following is an excerpt from:

In Scoring Position: 40 Years of a Baseball Love Affair

by Bob Ryan and Bill Chuck

1978 AMERICAN LEAGUE PLAYOFF

YANKEES 5 RED SOX 4

The Yankees win the American League East

FENWAY PARK, Boston

TOG: 2:52

OCTOBER 2, 1978

BOB RYAN

His birth certificate name is Russell Earl Dent. But he is far better known in so-called “Red Sox Nation” as Bucky (Bleeping) Dent. His lazy little fly ball, an out in every other major league ballpark, plopped gently over the cozy left field wall with two men aboard in the 7^th inning to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead en route to a 5-4 triumph in the first one-game playoff for an American League pennant in 30 years. A pitch before, he had fouled a Mike Torrez pitch off his foot. Mickey Rivers took the opportunity during Dent’s brief recovery period to change bats. “As he was being treated,” Rivers explained, “I grabbed the bat boy and told him to take the bat up and take away the one Bucky had.” As for the homer, Dent was as surprised as anyone else by the outcome. “I didn’t know it was a home run,” he said. “When I hit it, I hoped it would hit the wall, and I just put my head down and kept running. Then when I turned toward second, I saw the umpire circling that it was a home run.”

What most people have forgotten is that it was Reggie Jackson’s 8th inning leadoff homer off reliever Bob Stanley that made the score 5-2 and created the actual winning run. The Red Sox would score two in the 8th, making it 5-4.

The final drama took place in the 9th. Rick Burleson drew a one-out walk off Rich Gossage. Jerry Remy then hit a shot to right, and Fenway Park right field is the most notorious late afternoon destination in baseball, then and now. Right fielder Lou Piniella appeared clueless as to the location of the ball. After it landed in front of him, he stuck out his left arm, and — Voila! — the ball stuck to his glove. Burleson had been unsure of the ball’s trajectory, and he ignored third base coach Eddie Yost’s signal to keep running. Thus, instead of a run-scoring, run tying triple or perhaps even an inside-the-park homer (Remy could really run) or men on first and third with one out, it was men on first and second with one out.

Lou Piniella, always a stand-up guy, fessed up, “Remy’s ball, I didn’t see at all,” he said. “I didn’t know where it was going to land. Over my head. In front of me. I didn’t know if it was going to hit me in the head. I was just fortunate that somehow, I had lined myself up right. So, when the ball bounced in front of me, I had a play.”

Jim Rice, in Game 163 of an MVP season, hit a long fly to right. I was in attendance strictly as a fan, both of the Red Sox and baseball history itself. From my vantage point in Row 2 of the press box, I was certain I was looking at a game- and pennant-winning three-run homer. I yelled, quite loudly and unprofessionally, “IT’S OUTTA HERE!” It wasn’t. It remains in my scorebook as a “Long 9.” if only Burleson had been on third…

The final, final drama brought Captain Carl Yastrzemski to the plate. The baseball Gods weren’t with him. He went after an unhittable Gossage heater on the outside corner and fouled meekly to third baseman Graig Nettles. Season over.

The next day an anonymous Boston Globe editorial writer spoke for the multitudes: “Don’t blame the Red Sox for the season that ended in the afternoon shadows. In breaking our hearts repeatedly during this unforgettable pennant race, and in their manner of losing yesterday, they were being faithful to their nature and to their destiny and that of their fans.”

BILL CHUCK

First of all, it is essential that we distinguish between a “playoff game,” which this was, and a “postseason game,” which this wasn’t. A playoff game is still part of the regular season, and all the stats you see on Bob’s scorecard counted toward the 1978 stats. That means that winning pitcher Ron Guidry ended 1978 with a record of 25-3, giving him a winning percentage of .893, the highest winning percentage of any pitcher with 20+ wins other than Al Spalding’s .915 when he went 54-5 in 1875 playing in a world of baseball that bears little resemblance to the modern era.

Jim Rice won his only MVP in 1978 (Guidry finished second, but did win the Cy Young Award), leading the league with 163 games played, PA, AB, hits, triples, homers, RBI, and WAR. In 1978, Rice hit 46 homers and 15 triples, the same as Joe DiMaggio in 1937 and Lou Gehrig in 1931.

Bucky’s home run was his fifth of the season. He hit 40 homers in his career, four off the Sox and three at Fenway, two of which were off Dennis Eckersley, and this one, off Mike Torrez. Dent was 1-4 with three RBI. It was his first game with three ribbies since August 1977 and his last until August 1980. As Bob mentioned, Dent fouled a ball off his upper ankle on the prior pitch and hobbled about as he was treated by the trainer. Torrez threw no pitches to stay warm during that 1:20 delay, a decision that has haunted him.

Reggie Jackson’s homer was his 27^th of the season and the only one he ever hit off Bob Stanley.

Mickey Rivers hit his 25^th double of the season and stole two bases to give him 25 swipes on the season. He never stole that many again.

Thurman Munson went 1-5 with three whiffs. He would be killed in a plane crash the following August.

Yaz was 38 and on the downslope of his career. In 1977, the Captain had hit .296 with 28 homers and 101 RBI. After this game, his 1978 totals were .277 with 17 homers and 81 RBI. Yaz never reached the postseason after 1975 and retired following the 1983 season.

The key to a playoff or tie-breaker game is that the winner goes on to the postseason, and the loser goes on to making golf dates. At the time of this game, the only other playoff game in American League history took place on October 4, 1948, also at Fenway Park as Boston faced Cleveland. Boston lost that one as well, 8-3. While the AL played a single sudden-death game, the NL would play a best-of-three. In perhaps the most famous of all playoff games, the Giants’ Bobby Thomson hit “the shot heard ‘round the world” in the third game of the 1951 playoffs against the Dodgers.

New York baseball fans in 1978, could only read about this game from out-of-town or make-shift newspapers as the three dailies were in the midst of an 88-day strike.

The Yankees finished the season 100-63 while the Sox finished 99-64. The Curse of the Bambino lived on.

Bob and I were honored to speak at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown

In Scoring Position is available in all formats from Amazon.

If you desire a personalized, autographed hardcover or softcover edition, they are also available directly from me. Just contact me.