Cuban pitching legend Luis Tiant died Tuesday at the age of 83 at his home in Maine, the Boston Red Sox confirmed.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Luis Tiant,” MLB said in a statement.
One of the best and most dominant pitchers of his era, Tiant played in 19 major league seasons and finished with a record of 229 wins and 172 losses.
He had an ERA of 3.30, with 2,416 strikeouts and 49 nine-hit games with the Cleveland Indians (1964-69), the Minnesota Twins (1970), the Boston Red Sox (1971-78), the New York Yankees (1979-80), the Pittsburgh Pirates (1981) and the California Angels (1982).
His 229 wins place him as the fourth most successful pitcher among Latinos in the Major Leagues after Dominican Bartolo Colon (247), Nicaraguan Dennis Martinez (245), and the native of Laguna Verde in the Dominican Republic, Juan Marichal (243).
A unique style on and off the field
His way of pitching, turning his body like a dancer with his back to the batter and then throwing his pitches towards the plate from different angles, his Fu Manchu-style mustache and always carrying his tobacco in his mouth off the field, were unique characteristics of this legendary Antillean pitcher.
This brilliant pitcher was born on November 23, 1940, in Marianao, Havana. Following in his father’s footsteps, he joined the local youth leagues in the Cuban capital. Because of his abilities on the mound, Mexican talent scout Roberto “Beto” Avila recommended him to the Mexico City Tigers.
At the age of 20, he pitched for a short time in Cuban professional baseball with the Havana Lions, led by Fermin Guerra, achieving 10 wins with eight losses and an ERA of 2.72. The last season of this tournament was when the Cienfuegos Elephants (1960-61) took the title.
Tiant pitched in 30 games, completing nine and allowing 122 hits in 158.2 innings. He struck out 115 batters and earned Rookie of the Year honors.
His father of the same name, who had been a pitcher in Cuba in the Winter tournament (Cienfuegos) while in the summer he did so with the New York Cubans in the Negro Leagues of the United States, advised him to seek a future in the Major Leagues.
Major League debut with Cleveland
Cleveland bought Tiant’s contract from the Mexican League and after a stint in the Minor Leagues, the Cuban made his Major League debut on July 19, 1964, striking out 11 and allowing four hits in a 3-0 victory over the New York Yankees in a game held in the Bronx.
He finished his rookie season with a 10-4 record, struck out 105, and posted a 2.83 ERA in 19 games. With a respectable speed that exceeded 95 mph sustained, Tiant achieved 45 wins and 35 losses during his first four seasons with Cleveland.
He retired 621 batters on strikes in 692.3 innings and surpassed 200 strikeouts for the first time in 1967, with 219.
In 1968 he had his best performance, winning 21 with nine losses, leading the American League in ERA with 1.60 and in shutouts with nine (four in a row) and striking out 264 in 258.1 innings.
In this season (1968) he added 42 consecutive innings without allowing earned runs and on July 3 he struck out the Minnesota Twins 19 times in a ten-inning game where he established an American League record for games of that length, breaking the 18 that had been held by Bob Feller since 1938. Opposing batters hit just .168 against the Cuban (a record).
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His 1.60 ERA was the lowest in the league since Walter Johnson’s 1.49 mark in the dead-ball era (1919) and was surpassed this season by Bob Gibson’s 1.12 in the National League with St. Louis.
Following that extraordinary performance in 1968, Tiant suffered a serious injury to his pitching shoulder (scapula) that affected his performance and endangered his career, slowing his pitches and resulting in only 17 wins and 30 losses between 1969 and 1971.
The Cuban recovered and with the Boston Red Sox in 1972 he won 15 and lost 6. He led in effectiveness with 1.91.
With this team from 1972-1978 (eight seasons) and with his arm in good shape with his new pitching style where he would rotate his body in different positions sometimes facing center field before throwing the ball toward the plate, Tiant won 121 games and lost 74 (.621). He averaged 15 wins and nine losses per season.
In 1975 he finished with 18 wins to help Boston win the American League. In the postseason, he defeated Oakland, allowing three hits and one run with eight strikeouts. Then, in the World Series, he twice defeated the famous “Cincinnati Red Machine” which included superstars such as Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tany Perez, David Concepcion, and Ken Griffey (father).
He belongs to the Hall of Fame of the Boston Red Sox, Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico. In Venezuela, he had a record of 37 wins and 24 losses with an ERA of 2.27.
He struck out 468 batters in 563.1 innings. On November 14, 1971, pitching for the Tiburones de La Guaira, he gave up a no-hit, no-run game to the Leones del Caracas, the fourth time for a pitcher in the history of Venezuelan professional baseball.
His statistics, despite having three seasons with injuries, are similar and even better than those obtained by several pitchers who are in the hallowed hall of Major League Baseball.
In 2017, he stated that he made it clear to his family that if he was inducted into the Hall of Fame after his death, no one bearing his last name could make an appearance in Cooperstown.
