My interview with Bucky Dent, Sparky Lyle, and Fritz Peterson

Me (Chris H.) and Fritz Peterson

For Yankee fans, the club’s history is something that we should often revisit, for it is important to appreciate and take note of those who “came before.” Recently, thanks to the kind folks over at Steiner Sports, I was given an opportunity to relive some of that history by interviewing three former Yankees about their respective places in team lore.

About three weekends ago (a number of issues have prevented me from posting this sooner), on the day of a terrible storm that uprooted trees and downed power lines across the Tri-State area, I met with Bucky Dent, Sparky Lyle, and Fritz Peterson at an autograph signing at Last Licks in Rye Ridge (the event was orchestrated by Steiner Sports, who had invited me to conduct the interview). Now, I had never conducted a baseball interview before and thought I would be speaking to each player individually, providing for a very straightforward, formulaic – in its implementation – interview, however, that was not the case. I was in a small room with all three players and spoke to Dent first, but with his former teammate, Sparky Lyle, nearby, the two often bantered back-and-forth. Peterson would also chime occasionally, and it all made for a pretty interesting conversation. I still managed to direct my questions to each player, so when you listen to the audio, you can hear an understandable exchange. I was going to transcribe everything, but I figured, because of the back-and-forthness (early on, in particular), perhaps it was best to just post the audio.

I first spoke to Dent (0:00-6:15s), then to Lyle (6:15-8:55), then, lastly, I spoke to Peterson (8:55-end) and would like to thank them all again for speaking with me. In case you need some quick background on the three, Bucky Dent hit one of the most famous home runs in Yankee-Red Sox history back in 1978, Sparky Lyle was the first AL reliever to win the Cy Young Award in 1977, and Fritz Peterson holds the lowest ERA title in the old Yankee Stadium. Enjoy.

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