Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1978. A Dent in '78 Red Sox season

This is probably the one story in the history of The Journal no one will want to read. It is recorded here only for the benefit of posterity. Readers will be excused if they skip ahead to the next item.

This is the story about The Providence Journal of Oct. 3, 1978.

The headline on the sports page tells it all: "Dent's homer turns Sox to ashes."

The story begins:

"The Boston Red Sox' wierdest [sic], most improbable season came crashing to a sudden end here yesterday, sent that way by perhaps the most improbable twists of all.

"They had talked about the overpowering pitchers the New York Yankees would throw at the Sox. They had talked about the sluggers. And they had talked about the base-stealers who might run roughshod on the bases.

"But it was little Bucky Dent, a slump-ridden, 5-foot-11 shortstop with a smarting foot and using a borrowed bat, who lofted a three-run homer into the left-field screen, propelling the Yankees to a 5-4 victory over the Bosox in an American League East Division playoff at Fenway Park."

On Page One, The Journal captured the mood of the fans:

"The world's most-frustrated baseball fans cheered, shouted, stomped, chanted, screamed and screeched their way through three hours of suspense yesterday afternoon, but at the end they were silent.

"When Graig Nettles clutched Carl Yastrzemski's pop-up for the out that gave the New York Yankees a 5-4 victory in the American League East playoff and ended the Red Sox season, the fans who have been through the same thing so many times before didn't know what to do.

"A few cried. A few put their hands over their face. A few groaned. Most were silent."