Flashback: Bucky Dent conquers Green Monster, earns nickname
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}With one swing of the bat, a new nickname and another New England villain was born.
On Oct. 2, 1978, Bucky Dent crushed the hopes of Boston Red Sox fans everywhere, forever earning the moniker Bucky ("Bleeping") Dent.
Dent, who had four homers all season entering this classic tiebreaking Game No. 163 to determine the AL East champion, crushed a Mike Torrez pitch over the Green Monster in the top of the seventh inning to turn a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 lead for the Yankees.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Your browser does not support iframes.
The Yankees would add another run in the seventh and another in the eighth, and hold off a Red Sox rally for a 5-4 win and the AL East title. It capped a tremendous late-season run for New York, which trailed Boston by as many as 14 games that July.
Dent, a light-hitting shortstop who finished with 40 homers in his 12-season major-league career, went on to win World Series MVP honors that season as the Yankees beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Fall Classic.