Some words about Luis Tiant (1940-2024), one of the most popular players in Red Sox history

Thursday 10/10/24

I wanted to say a few words about former Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant, who died the other day. Usually, discussion about Tiant from non-Red Sox fans or people who didn't see him pitch focuses on whether or not he should be in the Hall of Fame. I personally think he should be, but we'll get to that.

Tiant had good numbers, but was so much more than stats and he's the perfect example of why you can't just go by analytics, velocity, pitch count, and everything that baseball people almost exclusively go by right now.

He came up with the Cleveland and was a flamethrower. Struck out 264 batters in 1968. But then Tiant blew out his arm, his hard-throwing days were over, and it looked like he was washed up as a big league pitcher.

Tiant came to Boston. His first season with the team was on that 1972 squad, which is among my favorite in baseball history, the team that finished a half game back of the Detroit Tigers and played one less game, one of the strangest and cruelest cuts of the schedule of all-time.

The man known as El Tiante had completely remade himself. He featured one of the most distinctive wind-ups of any pitcher, in which he contorted his roly-poly body, looked behind himself, and finally delivered the ball to the plate as this human corkscrew. He became a pitcher who pitched. What a concept, right? There was no gas, no high cheese, certainly no triple digits--more like eighties. He thought. He outfoxed. He competed his ass off. He got by on guile and balls.

Today, a Luis Tiant would be told he didn't have the body, the arm, the right delivery, the stuff, the spin rate and there was no place for him in the game, but I'll tell you this: If you have one ballgame to win, there is just about no one else you'd rather have on the mound than Luis Tiant.

Boston fans loved him. They loved him when he played, they adored seeing him outside of Fenway smoking one of his trademark cigars and selling sausages long after he retired. He'd chat with anyone, sign autographs. He was a happy fixture. Seeing the video of his dad who had been able to make it over from Cuba to see him pitch at Fenway in the 1975 World Series has always made me smile. Tiant was a fighter. He had to be.

I got to thinking about who the most beloved Red Sox are. The team has been around for so long. I'd say the Red Sox' best loved players in their long history are David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, and Luis Tiant. We hear so much talk about how racist Boston is, the baseball team has been around longer any of the other teams, and if those three guys aren't the most popular, they're close.

What do they have in common? They were fun. A Tiant start was a fun event, like a Pedro start. They had their own brand of swagger. They were players for the big stage. They picked up their teammates. They had their own styles. They had personality. An attitude. They fought. They'd compete with everything they had.

People respected Carl Yastrzemski. He was like a Boston institution and many people's favorite player. But he didn't generate the same type of ardor and affection and excitement as the other three. Ted Williams' problems with the city and the fans is well-documented. But everyone loved Tiant.

Carlton Fisk, whose rookie year was during Tiant's first season in Boston in 1972, didn't love to catch any pitcher more than he did Tiant, and if I had to guess I'd say Tiant was his favorite teammate of his entire career. I was watching some of Game 4 of the 1975 World Series--the best World Series ever played--when Tiant took the hill in Cincinnati. The Sox badly needed that game to have a shot, and this man, with nothing but soft stuff and guts and brains, pitched the Old Towne team to a 5-4 complete game victory in which I bet he threw 160 pitches.

Tiant's teammates mobbed him after the final out was made--all of them except Fisk. He waited until Tiant was alone, near the third baseline, heading to the visitors' clubhouse, and then he pulled up next to the gutty Cuban and put his arm around him. We quintessential New England men--which Fisk certainly was--are not huggers. But that's one of the most tender--and telling--gestures I've ever seen on a ball field.

As for the Hall of Fame: Tiant compiled a 229-172 record with a 3.30 ERA. For those who care, he had a very solid WAR of 66.1. You can be a Hall of Famer as a starter with that WAR. Tiant "only" finished in the top ten in ERA four times. That's not a lot. I'd say he was a bit like Jack Morris--he was going to win you a game, but it might be 5-4, like we saw above. I mean, Jimmy Key finished in the top ten in ERA six times, and I don't think anyone thinks of Key as a Hall of Famer (very good pitcher, though). Tiant did lead the league in ERA twice, though, and during that 1968 season of the Year of the Pitcher, he was among the best of those hurlers. He was only a three-time All-Star. But you know what? So was Robin Yount.

I don't really care about top ten ERA finishes and All-Star nods with Tiant. I see that win total and a career ERA that a pitcher can be proud of. But more than that, I see a big-game pitcher, a mound magician who was bursting with life, a resilient man and a resilient athlete who was elite two different ways. Frank Tanana was another fireballer and he could have been on his way to Cooperstown, but he blew out his arm. He did a great job of reinventing himself as a junk baller and had a lot of value over the rest of what ended up being a long career, but his Act II wasn't at the level of Tiant's, who may have even been a better pitcher in the mid-1970s than when he was coming up in the late 1960s. He was more fun. I know that.

Catfish Hunter is a Hall of Fame pitcher people like to use as a comp for Tiant, and they say that he shouldn't even be in the Hall. I don't get that. To me, it's like the people who run down Lou Brock, when Brock is such an obvious Hall of Famer in my view. Hunter had some stellar things going for him. He won a Cy Young. Tiant never did that. He had a cool name. Don't underestimate what a cool or different name can do for someone. He was a member of the three-peat Oakland Athletics, gutsy, threw a ton of innings for a stretch in his twenties, was strong in the postseason, then he went to the Bronx and played on those crazy late '70s Yankees teams as a big star and household name. He developed arm problems of his own and was done by thirty-three. But he's a Hall of Famer and he should be. And while we have to understand the limitations of WAR and all analytics, I will note that Hunter's career WAR was 40.9. So Luis Tiant should be in the Hall of Fame, and I hope a committee does the right thing and puts him in one of these days and that his family can enjoy that.

Not being in the Hall of Fame, though, doesn't dim what Luis Tiant was. I don't think you can dim that. He was a joy to watch on the mound. Pure baseball joy. And the fans of an entire region put their arm around him, because they loved to watch him do what he did and they admired the man they saw come out through the pitcher.