DenisHorgan.com

In this, the 30th anniversary season of the legendary Boston-New York playoff game (”The Bucky Dent Game,” even though it was Reggie Jackson who hit the deciding homer), it is instructional to review history and demonstrate that the Red Sox won.

Never mind how the game has been played for a century and never mind the seeming results or the rules. You have to look inside the numbers, at the core support groups, at the demos. Just like in the primaries.

Using the Hillary Clinton rules-manipulation accounting method, the Beantowners won handily. The Red Sox got more total hits than did the Yankees, 11 to 8. Thus they can claim to win, using the slippery Clinton count rather than the trifling matter of total runs which the small-minded rest of the world uses to declare success.

Significant hitting blocs? Three Red Sox batters had two hits each while no Yankee did. Red Sox’ demos win.

The Red Sox scored in three innings while the poor Yankees only scored in two. Victory Boston, in statistics.

The Red Sox provided work for four pitchers, twice as many as Yankees who took the mound. The Sox get even more points for that from the extrapowerful scorekeepers on high, not in the game at all, winning the game which so many unimaginative sorts otherwise award to the Bronxers.

Who’s most ready to lead to victory? Boston! The Yankees struck out seven times while Boston batters whiffed only six times. The Red Sox earned three walks while the Yanks limped to only two. All the stats thus favor Boston. The establishment “super” stars of the Red Sox — Lynn, Rice and Yaz each had RBI’s. It was merely the upstart Dent and predictable old Jackson who delivered for New York. Clearly the power game favored Boston. The numbers are on their side. The Red Sox scored big runs late in the game, doing very well in the critical eighth inning. Big Mo shines on them.

The Yankees allowed a passed ball while the Red Sox did not, playing so well behind the plate. The Bostons has three doubles to merely two for the poor New Yorkers. The vast majority of fans in the Fenway stands that day were rooting for the Red Sox. All the evidence is that the Boston Red Sox won the game by a comfortable margin in every key area.

Oh, the persnickety might dwell on the truth that the Yankees scored five runs while the Bostons scored only four — but clearly, a la Clinton’s discounting the extended and ultimate results of the primaries and seeking to shatter the game the game itself in the process, the victory must go to the loser. And if anything else happens, it’s “I am Clinton, hear me rewrite the rules.”