It’s time to put references about Bucky “Bleeping” Dent in the same place we’ve now stored any quips about the Curse of the Bambino: in the annals of baseball history. The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry of today is completely different, rendering his 43-year-old home run irrelevant.
I don’t mean to belittle Bucky “Bleeping” Dent. He was one of the most notorious sports villains for a generation of New Englanders who grew up in Loserville. But his time has past. The Yankees are 0-3 in elimination games against the Red Sox when they roll him out for some pre-game trolling.
ESPN tried to make Bucky Dent a big thing last night. Buster Olney interviewed him in the latter stages of the game, as if his Patagonia jacket could bring back the Yankees’ lost mystique and aura. The Red Sox have been the superior team for the last 17 years.
Their playoff record against the Yankees proves it. They are 8-4 in their last three series, including Tuesday’s one-game affair.
Oh, and four World Series titles doesn’t hurt, either.
The Yankees are now the team that chokes in the big moments. Gerrit Cole, their $324 million ace, could only muster six outs Tuesday. For the right-hander, Fenway is a house of horrors: he’s allowed seven runs in eight postseason innings.
His ERA also dropped to 4.12 once MLB started cracking down on sticky stuff.
Even Giancarlo Stanton, who hit two mammoth home runs in the Yankees’ late-September sweep of the Red Sox, made an inexcusable mental error. He admired a first-inning blast all the way to the top of the Green Monster, and didn’t advance past first base.
Stanton sent another ball ricocheting off the Monster in the sixth inning, but Aaron Judge was inexplicably waved home, and the Red Sox gunned him down — starving off a rally.
That’s the kind of thing cursed teams do.
Dent had an amazing ride as one of the faces of the storied Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. But now it’s time for a new symbol.
How about Cole leaving the mound with his head down and 30,000 people screaming his name?
