August 20, 1977 – Yankees 6, Rangers 2
- Sal Maiorana
- Aug 20, 2017
- 3 min read
ARLINGTON, Tex. – It would be another month and a half before Bucky Dent earned his new middle name from Red Sox fans, but a few Rangers rooters might have been muttering Bucky “Fucking” Dent on this night.
Dent had hit only 10 home runs in his three-plus seasons with the White Sox, but when he connected for a three-run bomb off Gaylord Perry in the second inning to give the Yankees what turned out to be an insurmountable 4-1 lead, it was his seventh of the 1977 season for the Yankees.
There had been some talk that the baseballs used in 1977 were livelier. Fueling the debate was the fact that Major League Baseball had switched manufacturers from Spalding, supplier of balls for nearly a century, to Rawlings, prior to this season. Tests were conducted, and it was determined that the balls were indeed slightly more resilient, but they fell neatly within the parameters MLB had set.
Dent was asked about his sudden power surge, if that’s what you could call it, and whether a juiced ball may have been the reason. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve wondered,” said Dent, who had his first multi-homer game on June 8 against the Brewers. “But let’s not be ridiculous; I’m not really a home run hitter.”
Maybe not, but his dinger was the biggest blow of this game as it keyed New York’s seventh straight victory, 12th in the last 13 games, and one that chopped yet another game off the Red Sox lead. With Boston losing its third in the last four, its advantage was down to 1.5 and the heat was beginning to turn up in Beantown just as Reggie Jackson had said the day before.
Dick Tidrow made his second start of the year and put forth another fine outing. After giving up a home run to Mike Hargrove to start the game, he went seven innings and limited the previously lethal Rangers to two runs on five hits and three walks. Sparky Lyle pitched the final two innings without incident, lowering his ERA to 1.88 in securing his 19th save.
For the 38-year-old Perry, he moved into fifth place on the all-time strikeout list, with 2,802. At this point, he trailed only Walter Johnson, Bob Gibson, Jim Bunning and Cy Young. Forty years later, Young’s 2,803 strikeouts rank 20th all-time, while Perry ultimately moved all the way up to eighth with 3,534.
Perry began his career pitching 10 seasons for the Giants, earning two All-Star berths when he won 21 games in 1966 and a league-high 23 in 1970. He was traded to Cleveland along with Frank Duffy for “Sudden” Sam McDowell and in his first year, 1972, he won 24 games and the AL Cy Young Award.
He moved to Texas midway through 1975, and he was struggling in 1977 and it looked his days as a consistent winner were done. Instead, in 1978, playing for the San Diego Padres, he went 21-6 with a 2.73 ERA and won his second Cy Young Award, becoming the first pitcher to win one in both leagues. And still he wasn’t finished. Perry pitched until he was 44 years old before retiring in 1983 with 314 victories and a 3.11 ERA, more than enough to punch his ticket to the Hall of Fame.
Perry, of course, was widely accused of throwing a spitball, and whenever he denied it, he usually wore a shit-eating grin on his face. Billy Martin, once said of Perry, “If you stand next to him, he smells like a drugstore.” It was true. Perry would have substances in a number of places on his person, and umpires never really figured out how he was lubing up.
Howard Cosell once did an investigative TV piece in the early 1970s on Perry that hoped to prove that Perry threw a spitball. All Cosell came to realize was that Perry, like many pitchers, was always fidgety on the mound, touching the bill of his cap, his belt, his chest, his pants, the back of his neck, even scratching his crotch. The substance could have been anywhere, and Perry had easy access.
Shortly after the Cosell piece, Perry wrote a book entitled Me and the Spitter. He claimed he no longer cheated, but he admitted that early in his career, he put whatever he could find on the ball to make it move.
Martin knew he was still doing it. But at least on this night, it didn’t matter.
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