Boston Red Sox: Biggest heartbreaks in franchise history
By Drew Athans
Red Sox lose 1978 American League East tiebreaker game
Routinely pointed to as one of the most painful losses in Red Sox history, the one game tiebreaker to determine who won the AL East in 1978 is forever known to Red Sox fans as the “Bucky effing Dent” game. That it came against the hated Yankees made it even worse, but perhaps the most frustrating thing about it is that the game should never have even needed to been played in the first place.
As late as July, the Red Sox had a fourteen game lead over the Yankees in the division. The Sox played uneven baseball for the next month while the Yankees caught fire and by early September the lead was down to four games. The Yankees then came to Fenway Park and swept a four game series known as the “Boston Massacre” to tie Boston in the standings.
The Yankees had a one game lead going into the final day of the season, but the Red Sox won their game while the Yankees lost and so they finished with identical 99-63 records. That set the stage for the one game tiebreaker to be played at Fenway Park on October 2, 1978.
As for the game itself, the Red Sox had a 2-0 lead after six innings before the Yankees scored four in the top of the seventh. The back-breaker was the three-run homer by the light-hitting Dent, he of five home runs in 1978. He put a Mike Torrez pitch over the Green Monster for a 3-2 Yankees lead. They’d score another run that inning to go up 4-2.
The Yankees scored one more in the top of the eighth to go up 5-2 and even though Boston countered with two runs in the bottom of the inning, it was too little, too late. Just as he had in the 1975 World Series, Carl Yastrzemski popped up (this time a foul ball to third base) with two on and two outs to end the game and the Red Sox season.
This was the last time Yaz had a chance to play in a World Series; he’d retire after the 1983 season and the Red Sox wouldn’t win another pennant until 1986.