Sports
Karl Lindholm: The indomitable El Tiante deserves to be in Hall of Fame


THIS IS THE father of Red Sox great Luis Tiant, also named Luis Tiant, who was an outstanding pitcher in Cuba and for the New York Cubans in the Negro Leagues in the U.S.
Art by Graig Kreindler, used by permission of Jay Caldwell
October 1975: I was a young secondary school teacher in Cleveland at University School, teaching English and coaching baseball and basketball (yes, I’m that old).
I got a call one night from the dad of one of my baseball players, who asked if I would like to go to a World Series game — the next day! The World Series in ’75 was being played in Cincinnati and Boston, the Sawx against the Big Red Machine.
This dad’s offer came with conditions.
I could take in Game 4 of the Series in Cincinnati if I took his son and two of his friends, also players on the team, to the game. I thought about it — for about a second. Easy decision. These boys would be good company.
We drove down in the rain (Cleveland and Cincinnati are at opposite ends of the state), watched the game in the rain from our nosebleed seats at Riverfront Stadium with 55,000 other fans (hardly in the front row), and drove home in the rain. Lots of baseball talk.
The rain did not dampen our spirits in the least: we saw a great game, a magnificent pitching performance by the incomparable Luis Tiant.
Luis went all nine innings in the Red Sox 5-4 win, giving up four runs on nine hits. What was so remarkable, courageous really, was that he threw 163 pitches (163 pitches!), high leverage pitches, in this narrow complete game win. He protected that one-run lead for the last five innings. Luis also pitched a complete game shutout in Game 1 and pitched seven innings in Game 6.
Luis Tiant played in the Major Leagues for 19 years on six different teams. He came to the Red Sox when he was 30. His eight years with Boston (1971-78) was his longest and most successful tenure with any club. He won 122 games with the Sox, was a 20-game winner three times, and led the MLB in earned run average in 1971 (1.91)
For Cleveland in 1968, he won 21 games, with nine shutouts and a 1.60 e.r.a. In his career, he won 229 games and threw 187 complete games and 49 shutouts, more than many pitchers enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Luis Tiant died this fall (October 8) in Wells, Maine, at age 83.
For all those who remember El Tiante, the numbers, statistics, hardly define him. Luis pitched with elan. He was magnetic, charismatic, colorful, distinctive with his Fu Manchu moustache and roly-poly frame.
He developed a unique pitching motion, twisting his torso toward second base, showing the hitter his number and back side, then wheeling and unleashing a dazzling array of benders and heaters. When he was dealing, chants of “LOO-ee, LOO-ee” would erupt from the Fenway throngs.
Distinctive on and off the field, he was rarely seen (when not actually playing) without a big Cuban cigar. He embraced the limelight, was a “big game” pitcher. His contemporary Jim Palmer, Hall of Fame pitcher for Baltimore, said, “When the chips are on the line, Luis Tiant is the greatest competitor I’ve ever seen.”

RED SOX ACE Luis Tiant (1971-78) had a distinctive corkscrew windup, turning his back to the hitter, then wheeling and unleashing the ball to baffled batters.
It pleases me that Luis lived his final years in Maine (my home state, before Vermont). Wells is on the southern coast, just 80 miles down 95 from Boston. Upon his death, Maine Governor Janet Mills wrote on social media that he was “a mainstay at the Maine Diner.”
I know well the Maine Diner in Wells. I too was a mainstay there, in 1995, when we lived in Ogunquit, the next town over, on a sabbatical year. I so wish my time had coincided with Luis’s.
Luis Clemente Tiant’s story is a compelling one. He was born in Marianao, Havana, Cuba, in 1940, the only child of Luis and Isabel Tiant. His father, Luis Elueterio Tiant, was a slender left-handed pitcher who played from 1926-47 at the highest level in baseball-mad Cuba and also in the Negro Leagues in the U.S. for the Cuban Stars and the New York Cubans.
Young Luis C. Tiant was signed by Cleveland in 1961 and played in their minor league system for three years before joining the big club in 1964. He and a number of other Cuban players in the U.S. chose exile over returning to Cuba and facing Castro’s emigration restrictions. He did not see his parents for nearly 15 years.
In that fateful summer of 1975, Castro allowed the elder Tiants to come to the United States for a reunion with their ballplaying son and his family. On August 26, Tiant pere threw out the ceremonial first pitch in a game at Fenway against the California Angels.
From a full windup, he threw a fastball slightly down and away, out of the strike zone. He insisted on a second pitch: this one, a knuckleball, floated over the heart of the plate.
Luis Tiant fils has been on a ballot for Hall of Fame selection 15 times, unsuccessfully, most recently this fall, shortly after his death. He came closest in 1988, his first year of eligibility, when he was named on 30.9 percent of the baseball writers’ ballots, well short of the 75% required.
Last November, the Classic Era Committee of 16 members met to evaluate 10 worthy candidates for Hall of Fame inclusion, Luis among them. They choose to anoint Dave Parker and Dick Allen, certainly worthy, but Luis again was overlooked.

IN AUGUST 1975, Red Sox pitcher Luis C. Tiant was reunited with his parents after a 15-year separation. His father, Luis E. Tiant, an outstanding left-handed pitcher in Cuba and in the Negro Leagues in the U.S., threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park in a game against the California Angels.
Let’s give the last word to Dr. Joe Castiglione L.H.D., the voice of the Red Sox for 40 years (and Middlebury Honorary Degree recipient in June 2024). Joe wrote recently from Fort Meyers, Fla.:
“It’s terrible Luis is not in the Hall of Fame. He won 229 games and was a BIG game pitcher. I watched his Major League debut as a Yankee fan in 1964 when he beat Whitey Ford and shut out the Yanks. He threw gas then.
“I got to know him well in the last 20 years and I have never been around a player who was better dealing with fans — so humble, accommodating and gracious.
“He is missed.”
—————
Karl Lindholm Ph.D. is the emeritus dean of advising and retired assistant professor of American Studies at Middlebury College. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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