The 1978 baseball season can be boiled down to a Monday afternoon in Fenway Park. The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox were the best two teams in baseball and their race for the AL East title would be settled with a one-game playoff.
There was a renaissance in New York Yankees history that started in the mid-to-late 1970s. The proud franchise had last reached the World Series in 1964 and after the team was sold to CBS, a period of irrelevance and bad teams followed. Yankee Stadium itself underwent renovations and the team had to share Shea Stadium with the Mets while the work was being completed. 1976 was the year the renaissance arrived and it continued until 1981.
The New York Yankees were coming off two straight pennants—they returned to the World Series in 1976 for the first time in thirteen years, and then won it in 1977. They made it three straight pennants and two straight championships, but it was anything but easy. The 1978 New York Yankees went through a tale of two seasons, a managerial change and finally won one of the most dramatic baseball games ever played
This article offers a snapshot of 1978 sports, a year that saw dynasties reign–the Yankees and Canadiens repeated, the Steelers and Alabama football won the first of consecutive titles and Kentucky won in college hoops.