Yankees-Red Sox 1978 Pennant Race
Was This the Greatest Divisional Fight in Baseball History?
The Yankees came all the way back from a 14 game deficit to tie the Sox at the end of the season, setting up the greatest one-game playoff contest in baseball history.
On July 19, 1978, the New York Yankees woke up to find themselves 14 games behind the Boston Red Sox in the American League's East Division. The team had been mired in a low-grade slump all season long, and seemed more concerned about the next throwdown between Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson than they were about winning baseball games.
George Steinbrenner "Fires" Billy Martin
Frustrated with the mediocre performance of his superstar-laden ball cub, the Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner forced the resignation of manager Billy Martin on July 23, and replaced him with Bob Lemon. It was a move that met with both support and derision from players and fans alike. Martin was already a great manager who had won two straight American League pennants and a World Series for the Yankees. On the other hand, Billy was a heavy drinker with a vicious temper, and those two elements routinely overhelmed his baseball brilliance in 1978.
The Yankees responded to the managerial change, winning 19 games and losing just 8 during August, and cutting the Red Sox lead down to a mere 6 games.
The Boston Massacre
On Thursday, September 7, when the Yankees came into Boston for a four game series, the Sox lead had been slashed to four games. That lead was about to get even smaller. In fact, it was about to disappear.
The Yankees won the first game by a score of 15-3 on the strength of a five RBI game from Willie Randolph. They took Game 2 in similar fashion, pounding the Red Sox 13-2 as Reggie Jackson and Lou Piniella both homered and picked up 3 RBI apiece. On Saturday, Ron "Louisiana Lightning" Guidry hurled a complete game shut out improve his record to 21-2. The Yankees also won the Sunday game, 7-4. They had come all the way back in just seven weeks to tie the Red Sox for first place.
That Monday, newspapers in New York and Boston both called the Series the "Boston Massacre," a name that has stuck to this day.
A Great Fight Down the Stretch
The teams fought an up-and-down battle for the rest of the season. The Yankees built their lead up to 3 1/2 games by September 16, but the Red Sox played brilliantly down the final stretch, winning 10 of their final 12 games to tie the Yankees on the last day of the season. That set up a one-game playoff the next day at Fenway Park.
The Bucky Dent Game
Ron Guidry, the Yankees 25-game winner and the eventual 1978 American League Cy Young winner, started for New York. Mike Torrez, a former Yankee and now a 16-game winner for Boston, took the hill for the Red Sox.
The Red Sox took a 2-0 lead on a home run by their resident legend, Carl Yastrzemski, and a run scoring single by that year's MVP Jim Rice. Then, in the top half of the seventh, with Chris Chambliss and Roy White on base, Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent, who hit five home runs that year, drilled a Torrez pitch just over the Green Monster in left field to put the Yankees ahead by a score of 3-2. It was a Yankee home run that neither side would ever forget.
Thurman Munson doubled home another run in the 7th and Reggie homered in the 8th to put the Yanks up 5-2. The Sox closed the gap to 5-4 in the bottom of the 8th inning on run scoring singles by Fred Lynn and Carl Yastrzemski. But in the ninth inning, Rich "Goose" Gossage was able to get Yaz to pop out to third baseman Graig Nettles with two runners on to seal the win and capture the division crown.
The Aftermath
Later that week, the Yankees beat George Brett and the Kansas City Royals in four games in the American League Championship Series. Then, after going down two games to none to the Dodgers in the World Series, they won four straight and clinched their second consecutive world championship.
Steinbrenner re-hired Billy Martin four times, and re-fired him four more times between 1979 and 1988.
To this day, Boston Red Sox fans still refer to Dent as "Bucky F***ing Dent."
