Nothing creates heroes in baseball quite like a winner-take-all matchup, and few heroes in baseball history were more unlikely than Yankees shortstop Bucky Dent.
It was 40 years ago today that Dent hit a three-run homer over Fenway Park's Green Monster in the seventh inning, giving the Yankees a lead against the Red Sox in the one-game 1978 American League East tiebreaker that they would not relinquish. One of just 40 homers that the light-hitting Dent would hit over his 12-year career, the dinger turned the momentum in a fierce rivalry game and made Dent infamous in New England to this very day.