Boston — The captivating Cuban, Luis Tiant, who pitched the Red Sox to the verge of a World Series triumph and himself to the threshold of the Baseball Hall of Fame, has passed away. He had a horseshoe moustache and a captivating windup. He was eighty-three.
The Red Sox reported that he passed away at his Maine home, and Major League Baseball confirmed his passing in a post on X on Tuesday.
“Today is a very sad day,” Fred Lynn, a teammate in both Boston and California, posted on X. “A Big game pitcher, a funny genuine guy who loved his family and baseball. I miss him already.”
With a swaggering style and an iconic wiggling windup that froze batters in the box, “El Tiante” was a three-time All-Star and four-time 20-game winner whose greatest individual season came with Cleveland in 1968, when he went 21-9 with 19 complete games and nine shutouts — four of them in a row. His 1.60 ERA was the best in the AL in half a century and he finished fifth in AL Most Valuable Player voting; 31-game winner Denny McLain won it, as well as the league’s Cy Young Award.
Those performances, along with Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA in the NL, earned 1968 the nickname “Year of the Pitcher” and helped persuade baseball to lower the pitching mound to give batters more of a chance. No matter, Tiant again won the AL ERA title with a 1.91 mark in 1972, for the Red Sox (and lost the Cy Young to Gaylord Perry’s 1.92 ERA and 24 wins).
Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner remarked, “Luis embodied everything we love about this game: resilience, passion, and an undeniable sense of belonging to something greater than himself.” But it was Luis’s lively attitude that really set him apart. He had a natural ability to tell stories, and he would often do it with humour, integrity, and unwavering devotion to his colleagues. We are all very sorry to hear about his demise. Today, we lost one of the great ones.
The younger Tiant, the son of a prominent player in the Minor Leagues, finished 229-172 overall with a 3.30 ERA and 2,416 strikeouts. Over his 19-year career, which was primarily spent with the Red Sox and Cleveland, he recorded 187 complete games and 47 shutouts.
His death comes one week after that of all-time baseball hits leader Pete Rose, whose Cincinnati Reds faced Tiant’s Red Sox in the 1975 World Series — still considered one of the greatest matchups in baseball postseason history.
Tiant shut out the Reds in Game 1, threw 155 pitches in another complete game victory in Game 4 and was back on the mound for eight innings in Game 6, which Boston won on Carlton Fisk’s home run in the bottom of the 12th. The ’75 Series, which Cincinnati won in seven games, is often cited as the greatest of all time.
It was also a national coming-out party for Tiant’s distinctive delivery, in which he would wiggle his hands as he came to the set position, then turn his back to the batter before throwing. The motion would be imitated by generations of children in New England and across the country, but Tiant himself was unmatched.
“Luis had the kind of unforgettable presence that made you feel like you were part of his world,” Red Sox owner John Henry said. “He channeled everything into his love for the game and the people around him. He was magnetic and had a smile that could light up Fenway Park.”
After he retired in 1982, Tiant worked as a minor league coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox and was the pitching coach for Nicaragua at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He remained active with the Red Sox in spring training and was visible around Fenway Park, often signing autographs before the game at the ballpark’s El Tiante Cuban sandwich stand.
Tiant was inducted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame but never made the national shrine in Cooperstown, New York, receiving a high of 30.9% of the votes in 1988, his first year on the ballot. He was also considered and rejected by veterans committees three times.
It was a difficult day to learn about Luis Tiant’s passing. Kevin Youkilis, the former infielder for the Red Sox, tweeted, “A former player we loved coming into the clubhouse.” “Always cracking jokes and laughing so much that you can’t help but say, ‘Man you a sick puppy!'” Always appreciative of the time spent with a legend. May blessings come from his remembrance!
