Former Yankees Bucky Dent, Mickey Rivers throw out first pitch

Inclement weather before the first pitch forced the Yankees to forego the team introductions ahead of their home opener with Tampa Bay, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a little pomp. The club struck a strong note with the ceremonial first pitch. It marked the 40th anniversary of the club’s 1978 World Series championship by having two of its stars — Bucky Dent and Mickey Rivers — make the throws.

And judging from the applause they received, the 40 years hasn’t dimmed anyone’s memory of Dent’s home run over the Green Monster in Boston as the Yankees prevailed in a one-game playoff to reach the postseason.

“It doesn’t seem like 40 years ago,” Dent said. “To be able to be a part of the history of this organization and be in a one-game playoff when the whole world was watching? It doesn’t seem like 40 years ago. Yankee fans are the best . . . they never forget.”

Rivers and Dent have a special connection to that home run that many may not know about. Dent hit it with Rivers’ bat. Dent explained that he’d been struggling at the plate and asked Rivers if he could give his bat a try. Rivers agreed.

Dent had cracked the bat at some point before his famous seventh-inning plate appearance against Boston’s Mike Torrez and Rivers noticed. He had the bat boy deliver Dent a new bat and he hit the next pitch for the three-run homer that gave the Yanks a 3-2 lead in what became a 5-4 victory.

“I wouldn’t have my middle initial if he hadn’t given me the bat,” Dent said.

The former Yankees were asked the whereabouts of the bat. “Gone,” Rivers said. “Somebody took it,” Dent said. However they did hear about it years later when Dent was managing the Yanks’ then-minor league affiliate in Columbus and got a letter from a man in New York.

“I got a letter when I was managing in Columbus — I forget what year it was — and the guy said if I wanted to see it, I could come by and see it. He paid like $64,000 for it,” Dent recalled. “I told Mickey we need to go by there and say ‘that ain’t the bat’ and see what happens to him.”

The two had a good laugh at that.

Rivers and Dent were also on the Yankees team that won the 1977 World Series. They believe that these Yanks have the making of a team that could win multiple World Series.

“I’d want to go out every day to see these guys,” Rivers said. “It’s not just the big hitters and big players. The team nucleus is just like we had. . . . I think they’re going to set a lot of records.”

“They’ve got a chance to do something special, too,” Dent said, “and we’re hoping for that.”