October 2nd in baseball

on this day in 1978, the New York Yankees played the Boston Red Sox in a one game playoff for the A.L. East division title. the game was at Fenway Park in Boston. this game was best known for Bucky Dent's home run in the 7th inning that put the Yankees in front and staying there. (much to the ire of Red Sox fans, when reminded of this game call him Bucky freaking Dent). the Red Sox had built a 2-0 lead on a Carl Yastremski home run in the second and Jim Rice driving in Rick Burleson in the 6th. the top of the 7th is when the Yankees did their damage and went in front to stay. Chris Chambliss and Roy White single off of Mike Torrez. Jim Spencer came up to pinch hit and flied out. Bucky Dent came up and hit the home run that cleared the green monster in left field. Mickey Rivers then walks. Bob Stanley came in to replace Torrez. Rivers stole second and Thurman Munson drove him in with a double of his own to make the score 4-2. that would round out the scoring in the 7th. Reggie Jackson hit a home run to make it 5-2 in the top of the 8th. bottom of the 8th had Boston score two runs on back to back RBI base hits by Fred Lynn and Carl Yastremski off of reliever Goose Gossage to make it 5-4. that would be it for scoring. in the bottom of the 9th and one out. Lou Pinella made a key defensive heads up move. Jerry Remy hit a line drive to Pinella, but he couldn't see it so he pretended he fielded the ball cleanly by pounding his glove to make it look like he caught it. the trick fooled Burleson and stayed at second instead of moving to third while Remy went to first. Jim Rice then flied out and Burleson went to third from second instead of scoring the tying run from third. Yastremski then popped out to third to end the game. Ron Guidry got the win, Torrez got the loss and Gossage got the save. the home run that Guidry gave up to Yastremski was the only home run Guidry gave up to a left handed hitter. the Yankees won the world series that year, being the last team to win a world series after playing a tie breaker game as of this writing.

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