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Russell Earl " Bucky" Dent (birth name O'Dey; born November 25, 1951) is an American former professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, Texas Rangers, and Kansas City Royals from 1973 to 1984. He managed the Yankees in 1989 and 1990.
Dent earned two World Series rings as the starting shortstop for the Yankees in 1977 and 1978, both over the Los Angeles Dodgers and was voted the World Series Most Valuable Player Award in 1978. Dent is most famous for his home run in a tie-breaker game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park at the end of the 1978 regular season.
The Chicago White Sox selected Dent in the first round, with the sixth overall selection, in the 1970 MLB draft. He made his MLB debut in 1973. His best season with the White Sox was in 1975 when he batted .264, led American League shortstops with a .981 fielding percentage and was selected as a reserve for the MLB All-Star Game. After his $50,000-a-year contract expired at the conclusion of the 1976 campaign, he rejected the White Sox's three-year $500,000 offer. His agent Nick 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."
The White Sox traded Dent to the New York Yankees for Oscar Gamble, LaMarr Hoyt, minor league pitcher Bob Polinsky and He signed a three-year $600,000 contract upon his arrival. For the Yankees, Dent was an upgrade over Fred Stanley, the starting shortstop the previous year. The Yankees gave him uniform number 20 and they went on to win the World Series that year.
Dent continued his unusually high production by batting .417 (10–24, 7 RBI) in the World Series, earning Series Most Valuable Player honors, as the Yankees again defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in
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".John and Valenti, pp. 205, 233
In 1989 Dent opened a baseball school at Delray Beach, Florida, which featured a miniature version of Fenway Park. 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. Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe criticized Steinbrenner for firing Dent in Boston and said he should "have waited until the Yankees got to Baltimore" to fire Dent. 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". 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". However, Bill Pennington called the firing of Dent "merciless." But Yankees television analyst Tony Kubek blasted at Steinbrenner for the firing in a harsh, angry way. At the beginning of the broadcast of the game on MSG Network, he said to Yankees television play-by-play announcer Dewayne 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." 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." He then said, angrily, "George, you're a bully and a coward." 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." 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.
From 1991 to 1994, Dent served on the coaching staff of the St. Louis Cardinals under manager Joe Torre, moving to the coaching staff of the Texas Rangers from 1995 to 2001.
In 2002, Dent served as the manager for the Omaha Royals, the Triple A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.
In 2003, when the Green 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 to Yogi Berra in the seventh and final game of the 2004 American League Championship Series.
In November 2005, Dent became the bench coach for the Cincinnati Reds. The Cincinnati Reds released Dent on July 3, 2007; just a few days after releasing manager Jerry 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 in Central Park, New York City.
In March, 2020 he began hosting a podcast, Deep to Left with Bucky Dent. The most recent episode was released in February, 2021.
In 2014, Dent made a cameo as a father in the feature film Walt Before Mickey.
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, played softball at North Carolina State from 2010 to 2013, and was an assistant coach for the Hofstra softball team during the 2015 season, while Cody Dent played baseball at Florida.
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