Luis Tiant, charismatic Cuban who pitched the Red Sox to World Series brink, dies at 83

Luis Tiant  throws out the first pitch during a celebration of the 1975 American League Champions before a game between Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park May 5, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts.  (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
View All Photos
Former Boston Red Sox player Luis Tiant waves to the crowd before Game One of the 2013 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals at Fenway Park on October 23, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Luis Tiant, the charismatic Cuban with a horseshoe mustache and mesmerizing windup who pitched the Red Sox to the brink of a World Series championship and himself to the doorstep of the Hall of Fame, has died. He was 83.

Major League Baseball announced his death in a post on X on Tuesday, and the Red Sox confirmed he died at his home in Maine.

Known as “El Tiante,” Tiant was a two-time All-Star whose greatest individual season came in 1968, when he went 21-9 with 19 complete games and nine shutouts — four of them in a row. But it was his 1.60 ERA — the best in the AL in half a century — that, combined with Bob Gibson’s 1.12 mark in the NL, helped convince baseball to lower the pitching mound to give batters more of a chance.

BOSTON, MA - MAY 5: Luis Tiant throws out the first pitch during a celebration of the 1975 American League Champions before a game between Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park May 5, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)

BOSTON, MA – MAY 5: Luis Tiant throws out the first pitch during a celebration of the 1975 American League Champions before a game between Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park May 5, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)

The son of a Negro Leagues star, the younger Tiant was 229-172 in all with a 3.30 ERA and 2,416 strikeouts. He had 187 complete games and 47 shutouts in a 19-year career spent mostly with Cleveland and Boston.

Tiant won Game 1, shutting out the Reds, threw 155 pitches in a complete game victory in Game 4 and was back on the mound for eight innings of Game 6, which Boston won on Carlton Fisk’s home run in the bottom of the 12th.

After his retirement, 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.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *