RIP Luis Tiant

[Gil Bang 25,957]

 

[Beau Vine 54,230]

If you're my age, you spent a lot of time in Little League trying to mimic Tiant's delivery.

[BonzoMontreaux 1,038]

27 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

If you're my age, you spent a lot of time in Little League trying to mimic Tiant's delivery.

Este.  Loved watching him pitch.  RIP Luis.

[Hate 20,108]

Right now, YGIFS is asking Tiant all kinds of questions about those ‘70’s era Sox. RIP Luis!

[Pato del Muerto 52,498]

6 minutes ago, Hate said:

Right now, YGIFS is asking Tiant all kinds of questions about those ‘70’s era Sox. RIP Luis!

So lobo is in heaven and tiant is in hell?

[jimmyjazz 45,952]

2 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

If you're my age, you spent a lot of time in Little League trying to mimic Tiant's delivery.

My coach couldn't get us to stop.  Tiant's wiggle, the Joe Morgan batting twitch, all of it.  We were never very good but we had fun.

[Mittens 8,282]

[Beau Vine 54,230]

JoePos:

Quote

Sadly, we don’t get to choose the first thought that pops into our heads when the news comes. This is the enduring theme of the original “Ghostbusters,” I think, maybe. When I first heard the news that Luis Tiant died on Tuesday at the age of 83, my first thought was not his beautiful pitching motion. Reggie Jackson called him the Fred Astaire of pitching. Roger Angell wrote a wonderful piece about Tiant’s many windups, one that he named, “Call the Osteopath,” and another that he called “the Slipper Kick.” I wish that had been the first thing that came to mind.

Or I wish I had thought about his many different pitches. “Hell, he’s got about 50 of them,” Thurman Munson grumbled. Tiant would have broken Statcast, which would have tried to put names to his baffling array of fastballs, curveballs, sliders, changeups, palmballs, knuckleballs, splitters, spitters, critters and jitters.

I wish I would have thought about that big smile, that huge cigar, that glorious mustache. I wish I would thought about seeing him all those times at El Tiante, his sausage shop outside of Fenway Park. He was always there, it seemed, always ready to take a photograph and sign an autograph and reminisce.

I wish I had first thought about the 1975 World Series and how he almost singlehandedly kept those surprising Red Sox going against one of the greatest teams in baseball history, the ’75 Reds.

“If a man put a gun to my head and said, ‘I’m going to pull the trigger if you lose this game,’” his Red Sox manager Darrell Johnson said, “I’d want Luis Tiant to pitch that game.”

I wish I had thought about the shutouts, all those shutouts, 49 of them, more than any pitcher who is not in the Hall of Fame, more than there have been in all of baseball the last two seasons combined.

I wish I had thought about how old he REALLY was, because, like Satchel Paige himself, the life never matched up to the birthdate. “All I know is Tiant was a big national hero when I was a boy growing up in Cuba,” Tony Perez said. “And now, he’s one year older than me.”

I wish I had first thought about his father, Luis Tiant Sr., who saw him pitch in that ’75 Series. The father pitched in the Negro leagues; Buck O’Neil said that Luis Tiant Sr. had the best pickoff move in the history of baseball, and that it was more like a magic trick than a baseball move. When Luis Tiant Jr. was young, he threw an exploding fastball—in 1968, when pitching for Cleveland, he finished the year with a 1.60 ERA and more strikeouts than innings pitched when that was a rarity. As he got older, though, and his arm began aching and the fastball lost steam, he took on his father’s persona, with all the gyrations and arm angles and sleights of hand. It was all so wonderful.

“He is a joy to watch, this swarthy, ample gentleman of 34 going on 44,” Red Smith wrote.

Yes, that was Tiant, forever 34 going on 44.

I have thought about all of that and so much more as the news settled in.

But first, alas, I thought about the Hall of Fame… and how sad it is that Luis Tiant did not get elected while he was alive.

It bothered him. Well, sure it did—El Tiante was a heaping bowl of happiness and laughter; the enduring image of teammates and fans alike is of Tiant puffing on his gigantic cigar (which never seemed to go out), telling stories and just cackling joyfully. But he was also a proud athlete. He knew that he was as good as anyone… and better than most.

His journey to Cooperstown, though, was blocked at every turn by bad timing. Take his legendary 1968 season. His 1.60 ERA that year is the lowest in the American League since the end of Deadball. And, yet, few remember it because there was a much more famous decimal that year: Bob Gibson’s legendary 1.12 ERA in the National League. Heck, Tiant didn’t even get an American League Cy Young vote, because Denny McLain won 31 games for the Detroit Tigers.

Then the arm problems came, and Tiant had to figure out how to retire batters without the unhittable stuff. He lost three prime seasons reshaping himself, learning new pitches, designing new windups, finding control and command. Most wrote him off. But in 1972, at age 31, El Tiante re-emerged.

Lowest Red Sox ERA seasons since Deadball:

Pedro Martinez, 2000, 1.74

Luis Tiant, 1972, 1.91

Roger Clemens, 1990, 1.93

He won 20 three times for the Red Sox but never got a single first-place Cy Young vote. He pitched in a time when wins tended to decide such things, and Tiant fell a win or two short each time.

Then came the ultimate bit of bad timing: In 1979, he was teammates on the New York Yankees with his great contemporary, Catfish Hunter. They had been two of the most celebrated big-game pitchers in baseball for more than a decade. Tiant was five years older than Hunter (at least), but he was still effective that season (13-8, 3.91 ERA). Hunter was not effective. Hunter retired. Tiant pitched on for parts of three more seasons with the Yankees, Pirates and Angels.

Their career numbers after the 1979 season:

Catfish Hunter: 224-166, 3.26 ERA, 3.66 FIP, 2,012 Ks, 954 walks, 1 Cy Young, five World Series rings, 36.8 combo WAR.

Luis Tiant: 217-156, 3.21 ERA, 3.48 FIP, 2,270 Ks, 1,027 walks, two ERA titles, zero rings but one memorable World Series performance, 55.2 combo WAR.

When Hunter came on the Hall of Fame ballot in 1985, he was immediately the eligible pitcher with the most wins. The best pitchers on the ballot then were Jim Bunning, Mickey Lolich, Lew Burdette, guys like that. Hunter got 53.7% of the vote. No viable Hall of Fame candidate pitcher came on the ballot the next year, and Hunter’s Hall of Fame percentage skyrocketed to 68%. The next year, again, no viable Hall of Fame candidate pitcher came on the ballot, and Catfish Hunter was elected.

THEN Luis Tiant appeared on the ballot. He, like Hunter, had the most wins that first year, and he got 30.9% of the vote, a healthy total that suggested he would get elected to the Hall of Fame at some point.

Only then came the blizzard. Over the next seven years, Steve Carlton (329 wins and four Cy Youngs), Don Sutton (324 wins), Phil Niekro (318 wins), Gaylord Perry (314 wins and two Cy Youngs), Tom Seaver (311 wins and three Cy Youngs), Tommy John (288 wins and a surgery named for him), Fergie Jenkins (284 wins and a Cy Young), Jim Kaat (283 wins) and Jim Palmer (268 wins and three Cy Youngs) all came on the ballot, the most remarkable flurry of dominant pitchers to ever hit Cooperstown.

Luis Tiant’s Hall of Fame case was lost in the storm. He never came close to even the 30% he had gotten his first year. And though he has appeared on the veterans ballot six different times, he has never come close to being elected there, either. The blizzard of pitchers had forever changed the Hall of Fame standard. Luis Tiant did not meet that new standard.

This is what I thought about yesterday when I first heard the news about Luis Tiant: The man belongs in the Hall of Fame. I mean, we can bounce around the statistical arguments all day and all night. But the Hall of Fame should be so much more than stats. Luis Tiant was so much more than stats. If you were a kid who grew up in his day, like I was, it is 100% guaranteed that you imitated his pitching style. If you visited Fenway Park at any point, it is close to guaranteed that you got an autograph from him (Mike Schur is certain he has at least a dozen).

And if you are a baseball fan who loves the history of this game, thinking about Luis Tiant makes you smile and makes you happy that baseball exists. If that’s not a Hall of Famer, well, what’s even the point?

 

[Beau Vine 54,230]