When the World Series shifts from Los Angeles to New York for Game 3 on Monday, Bucky Dent will be in the Bronx.
The former Yankees shortstop is as excited about attending a World Series home game at Yankee Stadium as any New Yorker. Plans were confirmed Wednesday that the former New York heartthrob will be traveling to New York City to root for the boys in pinstripes.
When it comes to two storied franchises such as the Yankees and their National League challengers, tradition not only matters, it rules throughout New York’s five boroughs. The first pitch tossed on Friday night at Dodger Stadium marks the 11th time these two clubs will have met in World Series play. Los Angeles is seeking its eighth World Series championship in club history dating back to the late 1800s, when the team joined the National League as the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. Since becoming the Yankees in 1913, the organization has collected 27 World Series titles, with the last MLB championship won in 2009.
For Dent, it’s been 43 seasons since a Yankees club that he was part of representing the American League has appeared in the Fall Classic. That 1981 World Series matching the Yankees and Dodgers is as clear to Dent today, who played six of his dozen MLB years in the Bronx, as one of the players in pinstripes. However, Dent’s third World Series experience since joining the club for the 1977 season, was different from the first two.
Late in the split-season of 1981, after an MLB strike that caused the cancellation of more than 700 regular season games, the Yankee shortstop was injured. It was during a four-game series at Chicago’s Comiskey Park with the White Sox when Dent went down. The torn ligament in his right throwing hand required surgery, and would keep him out of any postseason action.
“I was trying to break up a double play going into second base, and hit the bag the wrong way,” Dent told The Epoch Times during a phone conversation this past Wednesday. “I missed playing in the Series, but George (late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner) made me the ‘eye in the sky’ in the press box.”
Armed with a walkie-talkie high above home plate, Dent recalls his assignment as calling down to Yankees coach Yogi Berra in the dugout and telling him where to position his replacement, Larry Milbourne, at shortstop.
“Larry was either moving to the right or the left, depending on who was up to bat for the Dodgers. You only get so many opportunities to get to the World Series. In 1981, that was tough for me, to sit and watch because I wanted to be out there.”
With the Dodgers winning the World Series in October 1981 at the expense of a Yankees club not being able to field their starting middle infielder of the past five seasons, Dent takes solace in having successful postseason memories at the expense of Los Angeles in the fall of 1977 and 1978.
With the Yankees winning back-to-back MLB championships, after being swept in four games by the Cincinnati Reds in 1976, Dent remembers defeating the Dodgers as a dream come true.
“I have flashbacks all the time of playing the Dodgers. Of those great World Series games, it’s the first one (1977) that is easiest to think about. Growing up a Yankees fan in the 1950s, I used to watch them on a black and white TV. Then, all of a sudden, I’m standing at shortstop, with two outs in the ninth inning. We were one out away from a lifetime dream coming true. What a feeling.”
The second Yankees club winning the World Series over Los Angeles in 1978, as Dent remembers the matchup, was special because his club had gone back-to-back. With New York down two games to the Dodgers, the Yankees won four consecutive games to claim the Commissioner’s Trophy.
The 2024 version of Yankees versus Dodgers in the World Series is pitting sluggers as Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and Giancarlo Stanton in pinstripes against the trio of Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Shohei Ohtani from the National League champions.
“An east coast-west coast Series is what a lot of baseball fans live for,” said Dent, who won MVP honors in the 1978 World Series, by hitting .417, driving in seven RBIs, while collecting 10 hits.
The 2024 World Series road trips for both the Yankees and Dodgers will have them traveling 2,800 miles between homestands.
Superstars when New York and Los Angeles last clashed in October baseball are easily remembered today. Reggie Jackson, Steve Garvey, Lou Piniella, and the late Fernando Valenzuela led the list of the World Series headliners that Dent was surrounded by. This Friday night, a new round of stars could emerge, all looking for the opportunities that Dent had when being traded to the Yankees on April 5, 1977.
Playing on the game’s grandest stage usually brings out an additional layer of determination in athletes that takes them to the next level of stardom. Both the Yankees and Dodgers have an ample supply of volunteers for the job.
