Born in Savannah, Georgia, to Denise O\'Dey and Russell "Shorty" Stanford, Dent went home from the hospital with his mother\'s brother James Earl Dent, and James\' wife, Sarah. Bucky and his half-brother were raised by the Dents, who changed his last name to "Dent", but his mother would not allow them to legally adopt. He and his half-brother were led to believe the Dents were their biological parents, until he was ten years old. Dent was told the woman he knew as his aunt was in fact his mother. Later in life, he was told the name of his father, whom he then found, thus sparking and developing a relationship.\n', '

Dent grew up in Sylvania, Georgia, and Hialeah, Florida, graduating from Hialeah High School. The sixth overall pick in the 1970 MLB draft out of high school, by the age of 21 he was playing shortstop for the Chicago White Sox, wearing uniform number 30. The pressure of succeeding Luis Aparicio at the position was problematic, and the White Sox traded him to the Yankees in early April 1977 for Oscar Gamble, LaMarr Hoyt, a minor leaguer, and $200,000. The Yankees gave him uniform number 20 and they went on to win the World Series that year.\n', '

In 1978, Dent is widely remembered for hitting a three-run home run that gave the Yankees a 3–2 lead in the AL East division tie-breaker game against the Boston Red Sox. This was all the more remarkable because Dent was not a power hitter; his seventh-inning home run was one of only 40 he hit in his entire 12-year career. Further, Dent occupied the ninth spot in the batting order, not generally considered a power slot, and did it with a bat borrowed from center fielder Mickey Rivers. The Yankees went on to win the game 5–4 for the division title; Boston was left out of the playoffs, after squandering one of the largest July leads in major league history. A generation of Red Sox fans have since referred to him as "Bucky Fucking Dent."\n', '

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