Luis Tiant, the charismatic Cuban with a horseshoe mustache and mesmerizing windup who pitched the Boston Purple Sox to the brink of a World Sequence championship and himself to the doorstep of the Corridor of Fame, has died. He was 83.
Main League Baseball introduced his demise in a publish on X on Tuesday, and the Purple Sox confirmed that he died at his house in Maine.
“Immediately is a really unhappy day,” Fred Lynn, a teammate in each Boston and California, posted on X. “A Large recreation pitcher, a humorous real man who beloved his household and baseball. I miss him already.”
Immediately is a really unhappy day. My buddy and teammate , Luis Tiant, handed away. A Large recreation pitcher, a humorous real man who beloved his household and baseball. I miss him already….RIP my buddy. pic.twitter.com/9jFODk2Che
— Fred Lynn (@19fredlynn) October 8, 2024
Purple Sox principal proprietor John Henry echoed Lynn’s sentiments.
“Luis had the form of unforgettable presence that made you’re feeling such as you had been a part of his world,” Henry mentioned in a press release. “He was a pitcher with unbelievable expertise, conducting a lot with a method uniquely his personal. However what actually set Luis aside was his zest for all times, embracing each second with an infectious spirit, even within the face of his many challenges. He channeled all the things into his love for the sport and the individuals round him. He was magnetic and had a smile that would mild up Fenway Park. Luis was actually one-of-a-kind and all of us on the Purple Sox will miss him.”
Often known as “El Tiante,” Tiant was a three-time All-Star whose best particular person season got here in 1968 with Cleveland, when he went 21-9 with 19 full video games and 9 shutouts — 4 of them in a row. However it was his 1.60 ERA — one of the best within the American League in half a century — that, mixed with Bob Gibson’s 1.12 mark within the Nationwide League, helped persuade baseball to decrease the pitching mound to present batters extra of an opportunity.
The son of a Negro Leagues star, the youthful Tiant was 229-172 in all with a 3.30 ERA and a couple of,416 strikeouts. He had 187 full video games and 49 shutouts in a 19-year profession, which included six seasons in Cleveland and eight with the Purple Sox.
His demise comes one week after that of all-time baseball hits chief Pete Rose, whose Cincinnati Reds confronted Tiant’s Purple Sox within the 1975 World Sequence — nonetheless thought-about one of many best in baseball historical past.
Tiant gained Sport 1, shutting out the Reds, threw 155 pitches in a whole recreation victory in Sport 4 and was again on the mound for eight innings of Sport 6, which Boston gained on Carlton Fisk’s house run within the backside of the twelfth.
Tiant additionally hung out with Minnesota, the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh over the course of his profession. After his retirement, Tiant was inducted into the Purple Sox Corridor of Fame in 1997 however by no means made the nationwide shrine in Cooperstown, New York, receiving a excessive of 30.9% of the votes in 1988, his first 12 months on the poll. He was additionally thought-about on the “Golden Period” poll however didn’t get the required votes.
Tiant, additionally a member of the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Corridor of Fame, felt he had earned a spot in Cooperstown.
“I believe I need to be in Cooperstown, however I’ve one thing to say to those that elect me. When you do not take me in life, do not attempt to elect me after I die, please,” Tiant informed ESPNdeportes.com in August 2008.
Info from the Related Press and ESPN’s Enrique Rojas was used on this report.