Luis Tiant, the charismatic Cuban with a horseshoe mustache and mesmerizing windup who pitched the Boston 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 that he died at his home in Maine.
“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.”
Today is a very sad day. My friend and teammate , Luis Tiant, passed away. A Big game pitcher, a funny genuine guy who loved his family and baseball. I miss him already….RIP my friend. pic.twitter.com/9jFODk2Che
— Fred Lynn (@19fredlynn) October 8, 2024
Red Sox principal owner John Henry echoed Lynn’s sentiments.
“Luis had the kind of unforgettable presence that made you feel like you were part of his world,” Henry said in a statement. “He was a pitcher with incredible talent, accomplishing so much with a style uniquely his own. But what truly set Luis apart was his zest for life, embracing every moment with an infectious spirit, even in the face of his many challenges. 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. Luis was truly one-of-a-kind and all of us at the Red Sox will miss him.”
Known as “El Tiante,” Tiant was a three-time All-Star whose greatest individual season came in 1968 with Cleveland, 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 American League in half a century — that, combined with Bob Gibson’s 1.12 mark in the National League, helped convince baseball to lower the pitching mound to give batters more of a chance.
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 49 shutouts in a 19-year career, which included six seasons in Cleveland and eight with the Red Sox.
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 in baseball history.
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.
Tiant also spent time with Minnesota, the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh over the course of his career. After his retirement, Tiant was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 1997 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 on the “Golden Era” ballot but failed to get the required votes.
Tiant, also a member of the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Hall of Fame, felt he had earned a place in Cooperstown.
“I think I deserve to be in Cooperstown, but I have something to say to those who elect me. If you don’t take me in life, don’t try to elect me after I die, please,” Tiant told ESPNdeportes.com in August 2008.
Information from the Associated Press and ESPN’s Enrique Rojas was used in this report.
