| Bucky Dent | |
|---|---|
 Dent in 2010 | |
| Shortstop /Manager | |
| Born: (1951-11-25)November 25, 1951 (age 73) Savannah, Georgia, U.S. | |
Batted: Right Threw: Right | |
| MLB debut | |
| June 1, 1973, for the Chicago White Sox | |
| Last MLB appearance | |
| September 11, 1984, for the Kansas City Royals | |
| MLB statistics | |
| Batting average | .247 |
| Home runs | 40 |
| Runs batted in | 423 |
| Managerial record | 36–53 |
| Winning % | .404 |
Stats atBaseball Reference  | |
| Teams | |
As player
As manager As coach | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
| |
Russell Earl "Bucky"Dent (néO'Dey; born November 25, 1951) is an American former professionalbaseball player andmanager. He played inMajor League Baseball for theChicago White Sox,New York Yankees,Texas Rangers, andKansas City Royals from 1973 to 1984. He managed the Yankees in 1989 and 1990.
Dent earned twoWorld Series rings as the startingshortstop for the Yankees in1977 and1978, both over theLos Angeles Dodgers and was voted theWorld Series Most Valuable Player Award in 1978. Dent is most famous for hishome run in atie-breaker game against theBoston Red Sox atFenway Park at the end of the 1978 regular season.[1][2]
Born inSavannah, Georgia, to Denise O'Dey and Russell "Shorty" Stanford,[3] Dent went home from the hospital with his mother's brother James Earl Dent, and James' wife, Sarah. Bucky and his half-brother were raised by the Dents, who changed his last name to "Dent", but his mother would not allow them to legally adopt. He and his half-brother were led to believe the Dents were their biological parents, until he was ten years old.[4] Dent was told the woman he knew as his aunt was in fact his mother.[3] Later in life, he was told the name of his father, whom he then found, thus sparking and developing a relationship.[4]
Dent grew up inSylvania, Georgia, andHialeah, Florida, graduating fromHialeah High School.
TheChicago White Sox selected Dent in the first round, with the sixth overall selection, in the1970 MLB draft. He made his MLB debut in 1973.[5] His best season with the White Sox was in1975 when he batted .264, ledAmerican League shortstops with a .981fielding percentage and was selected as a reserve for theMLB All-Star Game. After his $50,000-a-year contract expired at the conclusion of the1976 campaign,[6] he rejected the White Sox's three-year $500,000 offer.[7] His agentNick Buoniconti explained, "It's obvious that the White Sox can't afford Dent. He is one of the best shortstops in the American League, and he should be paid like one."[6]
The White Sox traded Dent to theNew York Yankees forOscar Gamble,LaMarr Hoyt, minor league pitcher Bob Polinsky and$250,000 on April 5, 1977.[8] He signed a three-year $600,000 contract upon his arrival. For the Yankees, Dent was an upgrade overFred Stanley, the starting shortstopthe previous year.[9] The Yankees gave him uniform number 20 and they went on to win theWorld Series that year.
In1978, Dent is widely remembered for hitting a three-run home run that gave the Yankees a3–2 lead in the AL East divisiontie-breaker game against theBoston Red Sox.[1] This was all the more remarkable because Dent was not a power hitter; his seventh-inning home run was one of only 40 he hit in his entire 12-year career. Further, Dent occupied the ninth spot in the batting order, not generally considered a power slot, and did it with a bat borrowed from center fielderMickey Rivers.[2] The Yankees went on to win the game5–4 for the division title; Boston was left out of the playoffs, after squandering one of the largest July leads in major league history.[1] Generations of Red Sox fans have since referred to him as "Bucky Fucking Dent".[2][10]
Dent continued his unusually high production by batting .417 (10–24, 7 RBI) in theWorld Series, earningSeries Most Valuable Player honors, as the Yankees again defeated theLos Angeles Dodgers insix games.[11][12]
A three-timeAll-Star, Dent remained the Yankees' shortstop until1982, when he was traded to theTexas Rangers in August for outfielderLee Mazzilli.[13] During his six years with the Yankees, Dent lived inWyckoff, New Jersey, in a home he later rented toDon Zimmer.[14][15]
On the Rangers, his uniform number was 7. Dent returned to the Yankees briefly in1984 (but never played a game) before finishing his career that season with theKansas City Royals, wearing uniform number 21. He spent his entire 12-year playing career in theAmerican League, with a .247batting average and 423RBI.
Tommy John observed that Dent's throwing arm was not the strongest and that his range was limited. In spite of that, he was extremely reliable on balls he was able to get to. "He knew how to position himself, and he got to balls that were missed by other shortstops with better range," John said, adding that the player "was kind of taken for granted, until the Yankees unloaded him and discovered what he meant to the infield".[16]
After retiring as a player, Dent managed in the Yankees' minor-league system, notably with theColumbus Clippers. He served the Yankees as manager of the big-league club for portions of two seasons, compiling an 18–22 record in1989 and an 18–31 record in1990.[17] OwnerGeorge Steinbrenner hired Dent only as a stopgap, and did not believe he could lead the Yankees back to postseason play. He intended to replace Dent withBilly Martin at the earliest opportunity in 1990, but those plans were brought undone when Martin died in a car accident on Christmas Day in 1989.[18]
In 1989 Dent opened a baseball school atDelray Beach, Florida, which featured a miniature version of Fenway Park.[19] Although Dent had his greatest moment as a player at Fenway Park, his worst moment also came at Fenway Park when he was fired as manager of the Yankees.[20]Dan Shaughnessy ofThe Boston Globe criticized Steinbrenner for firing Dent in Boston and said he should "have waited until the Yankees got to Baltimore" to fire Dent.[21] He said that "if Dent had been fired in Seattle or Milwaukee, this would have been just another event in an endless line of George's jettisons. But it happened in Boston and the nightly news had its hook".[21] He also said that "the firing was only special because...it's the first time a Yankee manager...was purged on the ancient Indian burial grounds of the Back Bay".[21] However,Bill Pennington called the firing of Dent "merciless."[22] But Yankees television analystTony Kubek blasted at Steinbrenner for the firing in a harsh, angry way.[23] At the beginning of the broadcast of the game onMSG Network, he said to Yankees television play-by-play announcerDewayne Staats, "George Steinbrenner...mishandled this. You don't take a Bucky Dent (at) the site of one of the greatest home runs in Yankee history and fire him and make it a media circus for the Boston Red Sox."[24] He then stared defiantly on camera and said to Steinbrenner, "You don't do it by telephone, either, George. You do it face to face, eyeball to eyeball...If you really are a winner, you should not have handled this like a loser."[24] He then said, angrily, "George, you're a bully and a coward."[25] He then said that "What all this does, it just wrecks George Steinbrenner's credibility with his players, with the front office and in baseball more than it already is–if that's possible. It was just mishandled."[24] The firing of Dent shook New York to its core and the Yankees flagship radio station then,WABC, which also criticized the firing, ran editorials demanding that Steinbrenner sell the team.[26][27][28]
From 1991 to 1994, Dent served on the coaching staff of theSt. Louis Cardinals under managerJoe Torre, moving to the coaching staff of theTexas Rangers from 1995 to 2001.
In 2002, Dent served as the manager for theOmaha Royals, the Triple A affiliate of theKansas City Royals.
In 2003, when theGreen Monster seats were added to Fenway Park, Dent attended the first game and sat in a Green Monster seat that was very near to where his 1978 home run landed. No animosity was displayed towards him by Red Sox fans at that game, who were all cordial to him.
Dent threw out the first pitch toYogi Berra in the seventh and final game of the2004 American League Championship Series.[29]
In November 2005, Dent became the bench coach for theCincinnati Reds. TheCincinnati Reds released Dent on July 3, 2007; just a few days after releasing managerJerry Narron. At the time, the Reds had the worst record in Major League Baseball.
Every year,ESPN hosts a company softball game named after Dent inCentral Park,New York City.
Dent currently hosts a podcast, Deep to Left with Bucky Dent.
| Team | Year | Regular season | Postseason | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Games | Won | Lost | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
| NYY | 1989 | 40 | 18 | 22 | .450 | 5th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
| NYY | 1990 | 49 | 18 | 31 | .367 | fired | – | – | – | – |
| Total[17] | 89 | 36 | 53 | .404 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
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In 1979, Dent posed for apin-up poster. That year he also appeared in the TV movieDallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, portraying awide receiver who was the love interest of one of the cheerleaders. He also appeared in the September 1983 issue ofPlaygirl magazine wearing a swimsuit.
In 2014, Dent made a cameo as a father in the feature filmWalt Before Mickey.
He now lives inBradenton, Florida, with his wife, Angie Aberson, with whom he eloped in November 2019.
His wife, Marianne, died on October 22, 2015; they were the parents of twin children, Cody and Caitlin. He also has two children with his ex-wife, Karen “Stormie” Neale, Scott and Stacy.
One of his daughters, Caitlin, playedsoftball atNorth Carolina State from 2010 to 2013,[30] and was an assistant coach for theHofstra softball team during the 2015 season,[31] while Cody Dent played baseball atFlorida.[32]
Being here in New Jersey means a lot to me, because I used to live here [in Wyckoff, when he was with the Yankees] for six years.
By 1983, Dent had been traded away to the Texas Rangers, though he still owned a house in Wyckoff, New Jersey, which he rented out during the season. That year, the lease belonged to the man who'd recently been hired as the Yankees' third-base coach, a baseball lifer named Don Zimmer, the same man who'd been the Red Sox manager on October 2, 1978, and whose professional fate was irreversibly sealed with that one swing of Dent's bat.
Dent's greatest moment as a player—and his worst moment as a manager—came in Boston.
Firing the manager is nothing new for George Steinbrenner, who made Bucky Dent the 18th victim in the 17 years he's owned the New York Yankees. But it has touched a nerve in New York, where just about everyone wants to have Steinbrenner fired. Even the team's media outlets have joined the bandwagon...The latest critic is hardly a likely one—Fred Weinhaus, general manager of WABC radio, the Yankees' flagship station. 'We're tired of what we have and we deserve better,' said Weinhaus, who has run editorials demanding that Steinbrenner either sell the team or bring in a knowledgeable baseball man and give him full power to run it.
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Fort Lauderdale Yankees manager 1985–1986 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Columbus Clippers manager 1987–1989 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | St. Louis Cardinals third base coach 1991–1994 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Texas Rangers bench coach 1995–2001 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Omaha Royals manager 2002 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Columbus Clippers manager 2003–2005 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Cincinnati Redsbench coach 2006–2007 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |