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  But he wasn’t the only Hall of Famer in the Boston lineup. Carl Yastrzemski came up to lead off the bottom of the second inning. Yaz wasn’t the player he’d once been, and as a lefty batter, he wasn’t quite as good against left-handed pitchers like me. But he was still an All-Star, and players as good as Yaz make a living by taking advantage of pitchers who don’t have their best stuff. Which I didn’t. I was already running on fumes with the short rest. And the swing he took against me to start that inning—I don’t know if you can even call it a swing—was something only he could pull off. I threw a pitch high and tight, and he chopped at it like he was wielding an axe. I had no idea how he was able to hit it. But he cracked it down the right-field line for a home run. Red Sox 1, Yankees 0.

  Most games, I had the mentality that I wanted to throw a complete game and shut the other team out. That day, against Boston’s lineup, on short rest, I knew I just had to keep us in the game. They had good hitters—but we did too. I just had to get deep enough to give our bullpen a chance to close it out. We had the finest relievers in the game with Goose Gossage and Sparky Lyle.

  Yaz’s homer sent the crowd into a frenzy, and when yet another future Hall of Famer, catcher Carlton Fisk, stepped to the plate the noise grew louder. My first pitch to him was way high, ball one. The second pitch went into the dirt. Ball two. Sometimes when you’re tired you can throw hard but lose control and accuracy. I couldn’t let that happen. The noise from the fans was now deafening, with Fisk in a hitter’s count. I stepped to the rubber and stared down at my feet. I shook my arm out once, then did it again.

  I threw my next pitch, and Fisk got a hold of it. The crowd roared in anticipation. But that afternoon the wind was going against balls to left field. Our left fielder, Roy White, was able to settle under it, in front of the wall, for the first out of the inning. Fred Lynn, their center fielder and the 1975 MVP, gave the next pitch a ride out to center field. Again, fans thought it might leave the park. Mickey Rivers, our fastest outfielder, was able to get under it. It wasn’t pretty, but I was getting by. And I knew that’s what I had to do. I wasn’t going to be the untouchable pitcher I had been all season. But I had to find a way to get outs and dance out of trouble.

  And that’s what I did for the next several innings. I gave up a leadoff double in the third but didn’t allow the runner to score. In the fourth, I got Rice, Yaz, and Fisk out in order. As he did the first time, Fisk smacked it high and deep, just high enough for Mickey to get to the edge of the warning track and catch it. I gave up a single in the fifth, but the runner never got past first. I was holding my own.

  The problem was that Torrez was doing more than holding his own. He gave up just two hits in the first six innings. I’m not sure if he was out for revenge or just pitching a heckuva ball game, but we weren’t scraping anything together at the plate. Nothing like we did during the season. We had faced him four times during the season and won three. One of those times we knocked him out of the game in the second inning. His stellar performance today made it all the more important that I keep things close.

  Boston almost blew it open in the bottom of the sixth. And they would have if Lou Piniella didn’t make the most unsung play in Yankees history. Rick Burleson began the inning with a double. Jerry Remy sacrificed him to third. Rice, who I had gotten out twice, came through like he so often did with a single, scoring Burleson. Rice moved to second on a Yaz groundout, then I intentionally walked Fisk. He was 0 for 2 against me on the day, but inches away from being 2 for 2 with two homers. So with runners on first and second, with two outs, Lynn stepped to the plate.

  Now, our outfielders weren’t regarded as the best fielders in baseball. Mickey, in center, could run. But Roy White, in left, and Lou, in right, weren’t speed demons. But they were smart ballplayers. They were always paying attention and knew every facet of the game. Just because you’re good enough to play in the majors doesn’t mean you can’t learn more. And they were always trying to stay a step ahead of what was happening on the field.

  On that day, that meant closely eyeing how I was pitching. I hadn’t started with my best stuff, and by late in the game I wasn’t throwing as hard. When that happens, batters tend to get out in front of the ball and pull it more. Piniella and White knew that, which is why they played such great defense all season. Nobody had to tell them to play a step this way, a step that way. They always seemed to shade over just the right amount. They weren’t fast enough to chase down every ball, but they didn’t have to most of the time because they were always in the right spot at the right time to catch them.

  Lynn stepped to the plate; a hit from him could put the game out of reach. First pitch, ball one. Then a foul ball, strike one. Another foul ball, strike two. Finally, I was ahead on the count. The next pitch got away from me—ball two. I missed the plate again; ball three, full count. When he connected with my 3-2 slider, I thought for sure it would score two runs. He pulled it to the right-field corner, just shy of the wall. Even the fastest outfielder in the world had no business tracking that ball down. And Lou, our right fielder, was nowhere near the fastest outfielder on this or any other planet.

  But Lou didn’t have to go far. People thought he must have been psychic, because he was playing just a few steps away from where the ball was hit. Normally, he would be completely out of position. That was especially because Lynn never pulled the ball against me. But Lou knew today was different from any other day. So he played Lynn and he played me differently and put himself in the perfect spot. We used to joke with Lou that he was lucky at the plate. But nothing about that play in the field was lucky. Lou was a student of the game. He got there just in time to make a basket catch and end the inning. That play is nowhere near as famous as the one that came moments later. Still, it saved my ass. And our season.

  As far as improbable heroics go, Lou was about to be one-upped. We were down 2–0, but our bats were too good to stay quiet forever. During the regular season, even when we trailed the Red Sox by fourteen games in the middle of the summer, it never dawned on us that we couldn’t catch ’em. We felt the same way late in the playoff game. It never occurred to us that we wouldn’t score and come back. The surprising part wasn’t that we did it. It was how we did it.

  * * *

  —

  “I was so damn shocked,” Torrez would say later. We were all so damn shocked.

  Boston had spent the afternoon hitting me around pretty good. But they only had two runs to show for it—it could have been more. And if it weren’t for Lou’s baseball smarts, it would’ve been more. But it was just two. And as easy as the early innings had been for Torrez—he had given up only two hits and had thrown close to seventy pitches so far—we knew we could score against him.

  Graig Nettles, our third baseman, flew out to start the seventh inning. Not the start I had hoped for. Then Chris Chambliss, our first baseman, singled. So did Roy White. With Brian Doyle, our second baseman, due up to bat, Lemon made a surprising decision. He sent Jim Spencer to pinch-hit for Doyle. Spencer, a first baseman who mainly came off the bench for us, didn’t hit for much average, but he had a lot of power. He took a huge cut, but it resulted in an easy flyout, putting two on with two outs for Bucky Dent.

  Bucky was our number nine hitter. He was known best for being smooth in the field, and even though he was a tough out, he wasn’t much of a threat to take an opposing pitcher deep. He had hit only four home runs all season and didn’t hit for an especially high average, either. As the season went on, things only got worse for him at the plate. In our final nineteen games, he got just seven hits in fifty-four at-bats, a .130 average. Usually, in this situation, he’d be the obvious person to send in a pinch-hitter for. And Lemon wanted to do that. But he couldn’t. He’d used Spencer to bat for Doyle, and Fred Stanley, our backup middle infielder, would have to replace Doyle at second. Willie Randolph, who usually started at second for us, was out with a hamstring injury. If Bill
y Martin had still been our manager, he probably would’ve saved Spencer to hit for Bucky. But Lemon didn’t. And so because he had to use Stanley to replace Doyle in the field, he had to leave Bucky in.

  But here’s the thing about that season: On a team filled with stars, big personalities, and icons, somebody different stepped up every day. Some days it was me. Some days it was Reggie. Some days it was Munson. Or Willie. Or Goose. Or Lou would step up, like he did with that catch the previous inning. The stars weren’t always the heroes. The heroes weren’t always the stars. That day the hero was Bucky Dent.

  As I sat in the dugout, I wasn’t thinking about Bucky hitting a home run. Nobody was. That would be crazy. He hadn’t hit one in a month and a half. I was thinking: If he can get a hit, someway somehow, we can get a run and then we’re only down by one. One run in the final two innings is a whole lot easier than needing two to tie the game. I could go back out there, keep their bats quiet for another inning, and we could come back from one run down. So concentrate on getting one run.

  Since spring training, Bucky had been hobbled by a ball he fouled off his shin. He was never quite right this season. It caused a blood clot, and later in the year he missed a month with a hamstring injury. Because he often had trouble with fastballs, fouling them off his leg, he started wearing a foam pad to protect that front, left leg. For whatever reason, maybe to try to break out of his slump, he didn’t wear it that day. So naturally, when Torrez threw him an inside fastball, he fouled it off that same spot that had been killing him all year.

  As soon as he did, he fell to the ground. He got up and hobbled around, trying to walk off the sting and regain his composure. He bent over and grabbed at the top of his foot, by the shin. He leaned back up and grabbed it again. He went down to one knee while Geno ran to check him out. Another reason he should’ve been pinch-hit for. And he could barely stand. As he got back up, he leaned on his bat for support. Geno sprayed him with something or other, patted him on the hammy, and sent him back out there. There was nothing else to do.

  Strangely enough, all of this was the best thing that could have happened, for two reasons. First, Torrez was pitching well, but he was a pitcher who relied on rhythm. The delay, as Bucky gimped around, interrupted that. Sometimes in those moments, pitchers take some practice throws to keep loose. Torrez didn’t. The second reason has to do with the keen eye of one of our other guys, Mickey Rivers. At some point during all of this, he saw a crack in the bat Bucky was using. Bucky was a long shot to get a hit to begin with, and nobody has a prayer with a broken bat.

  Nobody saw it but Mickey, not even Bucky. “Homie,” Mickey hollered from the dugout. “You got a busted bat there!”

  He handed the bat boy a new bat. The bat boy ran it out to Bucky. He took it and strode back into the batter’s box.

  Following the delay, the crowd was quiet. Torrez stepped back onto the mound and delivered a belt-high fastball, down the middle. Bucky connected. You didn’t even have to watch the ball to know the sequence of events. You just had to listen to the crowd and watch Yaz out in left field. First, Yaz patted his glove a couple of times like he was going to catch it. Except as the day turned into early evening at Fenway, the wind had shifted. The same gusts that were keeping balls hit to the left in the park earlier in the game were now carrying them farther out. Yaz turned, getting ready to play it off the wall. Balls off the Green Monster can be held to singles.

  From the bench, we were all hollering. “GO. GO. GO.” A ball off the wall, even a single, would score that one run I was talking about. Maybe even two to tie it up, if it was a double. I knew what happened as I watched Yaz. He looked like he got punched in the stomach. His head tilted down. His body bent over. Fenway Park, and the raucous Boston fans, fell dead quiet as the ball disappeared behind the Green Monster for a home run. Save for the few Yankees fans who were there, and our entire bench, not a word was spoken in the stadium. Bucky never stopped running until he reached the dugout. We were all waiting outside, screaming and hollering. All of a sudden, to the disbelief of Yaz, Torrez, the fans, all of us, and the millions watching on television or listening on the radio, the scales tipped in our favor. Bucky Dent got a middle name in Beantown that moment for that improbable home run. Bucky F—ing Dent. Yankees 3, Red Sox 2.

  Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto explained the shock of an entire country: “I’m like a hen on a hot rock. I don’t know whether to jump, or sit, or lay an egg.”

  The hit pretty much ended Torrez’s day. He walked Mickey, up next, and was taken out of the game. Which was good news for Thurman, who had struck out three times in three at-bats against Torrez. Mickey stole second and Thurman doubled him home off Boston reliever Bob Stanley. A first insurance run. Yankees 4, Red Sox 2.

  * * *

  —

  I took the mound to start the seventh inning and struck out Butch Hobson. I felt good. Then George Scott singled to right, and out came Lemon to take me out of the game. It was the first time I ever argued with Lem. I was pissed. I did not want to come out. He had Goose ready, and I understand that when you get a reliever ready, it’s bad to let him warm up and then have him just sitting out in the bullpen. But I was mad that he got him ready. I may not have had my best stuff, but I was still going strong. I still had gas left in the tank. I wanted to, at the least, finish the seventh.

  Yeah, I had just given up a hit, but it was a weak, twenty-hop ground ball between first and second. It wasn’t like he slashed the ball or hit a line drive. That ball is an out most of the time. I could’ve kept going. I felt I should’ve kept going. And I was used to throwing deeper into games. I had only been taken out this early a handful of times all season.

  “My job ain’t finished,” I told him. “Lem, I’m still strong. Leave me in.”

  Thurman joined us at the mound. He agreed with me and told Lemon I was still throwing the ball good enough. Lem shook his head. He said he had gotten Goose ready and that I’d done a hell of a job. Thurman slapped me on the back, and I begrudgingly walked to the dugout. Lem signaled for Goose. My day was done. Goose got out of the inning, but the game was far from over.

  I watched the eighth inning from the clubhouse. I was physically drained and needed to ice down my arm. To begin the eighth inning, Reggie Jackson stepped to the plate. He had hit the ball hard earlier in the game but had nothing to show for it, 0 for 3. Say what you want about Reggie—and people, including Reggie himself, said plenty about him and his swagger—but there was only one thing to say about his ability as a batter: He was damn good at hitting the baseball. Despite everything that had happened with Reggie, Thurman, Billy, and George, I had so much respect for Reggie as a ballplayer. Not a big moment seemed to pass without him reminding people of how good he was. And that day, October 2, Mr. October, as he was called, clobbered a home run to dead center field, for what looked to be an insurance run. Yankees 5, Red Sox 2.

  It turned out we needed that insurance. Goose was one of the finest and most consistent relief pitchers ever. But beyond being good, he was intimidating. He was not a man you wanted to see when you stepped into the opposing batter’s box. At least, I wouldn’t want to be 60 feet and 6 inches away from that arm, and that mug, trying to hit the ball. The only thing scarier than his blazing fastball was the nasty stare he gave a batter. He had wild hair. A big mustache. Nobody was more familiar with Goose than Boston. That season, even before the playoff game, he had thrown more innings against them than against any other team.

  But no hitter owned Goose like Yaz did. Remy began the inning with a double. After Rice flew out, Yaz singled Remy home, kicking off a hit parade that would create an uproar at Fenway you could probably hear from New York. You could probably feel it in New York. Fisk followed Yaz with another single. Then Lynn singled. Goose got the next two guys, but the damage was done. The Red Sox had scored two runs. We went down quickly in the top of the ninth and needed three more outs to win. The margin
was Reggie’s solo shot. Yankees 5, Red Sox 4.

  After Goose got the first out of the ninth, he walked Burleson. This game wouldn’t end without more drama, and the tying run was on base. The Red Sox had been a great come-from-behind team all season. They just needed to do it one more time. Remy stepped to the plate next and roped a ball to Lou Piniella in right. At this point it was already past five o’clock. Around that time the shadows started to do funny things at Fenway. Lou was standing in the sun, with shade about twenty feet in front of him. Which makes it awfully hard to see the ball.

  So when Remy hit that ball, nobody knew if Lou would catch it or not. Because Lou himself seemed to have no idea if he’d catch it or not. Usually you can tell by what the outfielder’s doing, and how he’s playing it, whether or not a ball will drop in. But because Lou had no idea where the ball was, he gave no indication. By the time he could see it again, it had landed a few feet in front of him and to his left. He had to make a herky-jerky stab at the ball just to prevent it from bouncing past him and rolling to the wall. But he didn’t miss a beat and rifled the ball to third. Whatever you want to call it—luck because of the sun, Lou’s savvy in not tipping his hand about not catching it, or headiness that he reacted so quickly and fired to third—it changed the outcome of the game. Because during all of this, Burleson, the runner on first base, didn’t know whether he should be running to second—if it was a hit—or going back—if it was an out. Usually, he would’ve been on third after a single like that. Because of that indecision, and Lou’s immediate throw to third, Burleson had to stay at second after it dropped in.

  The next batter, Jim Rice, showed how crucial that was. He hit a towering fly ball, deep to right field. It didn’t have a chance at going out, but if Burleson had been on third, he would’ve been able to tag up and score easily. That would’ve made the score 5–5 with Yaz coming up. Instead, Yaz came up with two outs, two on, and down 5–4.