10 Best Sweat Stopper

Best Sweat Stopper in 2023

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Luis Tiant: "El Tiante" was Keystone of Boston Red Sox Pitching Staff in 1970s

Three-time All-Star pitcher Luis Tiant led the A.L. in E.R.A. in 1968 but was washed up by injuries by 1081. He battled back from adversity and became the stopper of the perennial pennant contenders the Boston Red Sox from 1972 through 1978.

The future three-time All-Star was signed to his first professional contract in 1959 by Bobby Avila (who himself had been an All-Star in the Major Leagues), who was scouting for the Mexican League. He eventually signed with the Cleveland Indians, and went 15-1 for their Pacific Coast League farm team, before being called up by the home club midseason. (His .938 winning percentage established the P.C.L. record.) His first start was against the New York Yankees, whom he shutout on four hits. It was a portent of things to come.

After racking up 10 wins against 4 losses in his rookie season in 1964, he had a mediocre 11-11 record his sophomore year. However, in 1966, he began to show his potential for greatness, pitching four consecutive shutouts and leading the American League in that category for the entire season with five. However, his record remained a mediocre 12-11, hampered by the lack of offense of the Cleveland team. He went 12-9 in 1967 with only one shutout, but he set a career best for strikeouts with 219, leading the American League in strikeouts per nine innings (9.22).

The following year, Tiant altered his delivery. On the mound, he turned his back on the hitter as he went into his wind-up, delivering a hesitation pitch that threw off American League batters. On July 3rd, Tiant struck out 19 Minnesota Twins in a 10-inning game after having fanned 13 Red Sox in his previous start, establishing an A.L. record for a 10-ining game and a major league record with 32 strikeouts in consecutive starts. In this, 1968, the "Year of the Pitcher", Tiant had his career year. In addition to his other records set that year, Tiant established the Major League records for lowest opponents' batting average in a season (.168); he also led the A.L. with an Earned Run Average (E.R.A.) of 1.60 and nine shutouts and as well as fewest hits per nine innings (5.3). Despite going 21-9 in the won-lost column with 264 Ks (third best in the A.L.), the Cy Young Memorial Award for Best Pitcher in the A.L. went to Denny McLain, who won an epochal 31 games (31-6, 1.96 E.R.A., 280 Ks).

In the years before free agency, the vasy majority of baseball players had to have an off-season job to supplement their incomes from professional baseball. Luis Tiant typically spent the off-season pitching in Latin America in the winter leagues. However, after his spectacular year, Cleveland Indians management, worried about protecting their suddenly valuable stopper, convinced him to skip the winter leagues for the 1968-69 off-season. Forsaking his usual regimen, Tiant was hindered by arm troubles during the �â'¬Ëœ69 season, and he became one of the few pitchers in major league history who have, in consecutive years, followed a 20-win season with 20 losses. In 1969, he posted a near-reverse record from the previous year (9-20) with just one shutout and an E.R.A. (3.71) that was more than twice that of 1968. In addition to leading the American League with 20 losses, he also led the junior circuit with 129 walks.

To counter the dominance of pitchers during the 1968 season, Major League Baseball had lowered the mound from 15-inches to 10-inches. With the expansion of both leagues by two teams, adding approximately 40 hitters to each league that would not have played professional ball that season otherwise, it was felt that pitchers wouldn't initially be too punished by the lower mound, which gave the hitter an advantage and increased batting averages in both leagues. (Luis' future Red Sox teammate and friend Carl Yazstremski had led the American League with a .301 batting average in 1968, the sole batting championship qualifier to hit over .300 in the A.L. that year and the lowest average ever posted by a batting champ.)

Whether it was a matter of Tiant being unable to adjust to the new mound, arm trouble, or a combination of both, the fact was he had an atrocious season in 1969. Cleveland traded him with Stan Williams to the Minnesota Twins for former Cy Young winner Dean Chance, third-baseman Graig Nettles (who would one day be his teammate on the New York Yankees), and two other players.

The Twins seemed to get the better of the deal when Tiant reeled off six straight wins at the beginning of the 1970 season, but he went on the disabled list in the middle of the season with a hairline fracture of his shoulder. When he came of the D.L., he wasn't the same pitcher, and he won just one more game that season. He ultimately completed the season with a 7-3 won-loss record in 18 games (17 of them starts) with a 3.40 E.R.A. Tiant did appear in the 1970 A.L. Champion- ship Series for Minnesota, winning one game in relief against the Baltimore Orioles in his sole appearance in the A.L.C.S., but that was the end of his career in the Twin Cities as anything other than an opposing player. Minnesota released him at the end of spring training in 1971.

Luis Tiant seemed washed up when, after signing with the Atlanta Braves on April 16th and being assigned to their minor league club in Richmond, Virginia , he was released on May 15th after just one month. He had not appeared in a single major league game that season when, two days after being cut by the Braves, their former cross-town rival when they were Boston's National League franchise, the Red Sox, signed Tiant and assigned them to their Triple-A club in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a long shot the BoSox were betting on, that El Tiante could recapture some of his old form if not his former greatness. Red Sox General Manager Dick O'Connell seemed to have made a losing bet as during the '71 season, after being called up as a reliever and spot starter, Tiant went 1-7 with a 4.78 E.R.A in 21 games, 10 of them starts.

The following year, El Tiante proved Dick O'Connell was a baseball genius (despite trading future Cy Young Award-wininng reliever Sparky Lyle to the Yankees for Danny Cater during spring training) when the pitcher did regain his old form. Tiant earned Comeback Player of the Year honors in 1972 for a Red Sox team that lost the American League East title by one-half a game to Billy Martin's Detroit Tigers. (The year had been shortened by a lockout of player by owners at the beginning of the season.) In his comeback year of 1972, El Tiante led the American League in E.R.A. (1.91) while going 15-6 as a spot starter and reliever in 43 games, 19 of them starts. Among his 12 complete games for the year were six shutouts. Make no mistake about it, Major League Baseball: El Tiante was back!

That season, Tiant became the anchor of the Red Sox pitching staff, and would remain so for the next eight seasons, taking them to a World Series in 1975 and pitching for them in three seasons (1972, 1977 and 1978) when the Red Sox came so close to a half=pennant each year before losing, it gave rise to the "Curse of the Bambino". From 1973 through 1976, El Tiante never won less than 18 games, and posted three 20-win seasons. He was selected as an All-Star in 1974, the year in which he led the A.L. with seven shutouts. He also appeared in the '76 All-Star Game, the year he won a career-high 22 games. But it was his appear- ance in the 1975 World Series, which many claim is the greatest, most exciting ever played, that made him a legend. El Tiante's �â'¬Å"hesitation pitch�â'¬ï¿½ delivery had developed into a bizarre, twisting dance with multiple release points that baffled A.L. hitters trying to visually pickup the pitched ball leaving his hand. It also baffled National League umpires, who were unused to seeing Tiant pitch in the days before inter-league play: He was called for a balk in Game 1 of the World Series.

The eccentric delivery and lovable personality put on display in the post-season made El Tiante a star. Baseball fans outside of the Red Sox Nation getting a first look at Tiant were as bedazzled as the major league hitters who faced his strange windup. To keep the hitters guessing, El Tiante would let the ball go from any of a variety of release points. Curt Gowdy, the announcer for N.B.C., which televised the �â'¬Ëœ75 World Series, said about this delivery, "He comes [from] everywhere except between his legs."

El Tiante won the opening game, hurling a shutout against the fearsome "Big Red Machine" that was the Cincinnati Reds, who had been to the World Series in 1970 and '72. (He also had beaten the defending World Champion Oakland A's in the 1975 American League Championship Series, in a game in which he gave up only one earned run.) In the World Series, Tiant also won Game Four and was the starting pitcher in the fabled Game 6, which many call the most exciting game ever played. Tiant started out well but got rocked hard by Reds. Ultimately, he didn't get the decision, which went to the BoSox in extra innings when future Hall-of-Famer Carlton Fisk hit a walk-off home-run, one of the most famous in baseball history. The Red Sox eventually lost the world title to the Big Red Machine in the seventh and deciding game.

Part of El Tiante's charm was that no one was ever quite sure how old he was, since the memories of many Cuban-Americans and Cuban players in the Big Leagues tended to mix him up with his father, who was a pitching great back on the home island. Cuba, including its "El Jefe" Fidel Castro (who had allowed Luis Tiant, Sr. to attend the first game of the �â'¬Ëœ75 World Series), has always been baseball-mad, and before the Iron Curtain descended in the early 1960s, it had produced many great players for the major leagues, particularly after baseball was desegregated. (It still does: The Cuban National Team was defeated by the Japanese National Team in the 2020 World Tournament.) Cincinnati Reds great and Hall-of-Famer Tony Perez (who faced the Sox as part of the Big Red Machine during the '75 Series), who was born in and grew up in Cuba, was once quoted as saying, "When I was a boy growing up in Cuba, Luis Tiant was a national hero. Now I'm thirty-six and he's thirty-seven!" It helped make El Tiante one of the most beloved characters in sports, but only after he won redemption by staging a spectacular comeback with the Red Sox.

All Cinderella stories come to an end, and the end of El Tiante's waltz with the Sox ended on November 13, 1978, when New York Yankees owner George M. Steinbrenner, czar of what has become known in the Red Sox Nation as "The Evil Empire", signed El Tiante as a free agent. The loss of Luis Tiant caused much consternation among Red Sox fans and players. (He was Red Sox Capitain Carl Yastrzemski's best friend on the team. Bill Lee , "The Spaceman", has recounted how both feared to fly on planes, and during bad weather would be sitting next to each other with looks of distress on their faces.)

Tiant pitched two season for the Yankees (1979-1980), though he did not appear in the A.L.C.S. against the Kansas City Royals, which powered by the torrid bat of George Brett, swept the Bronx Bombers in three games. He caught on with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1981 but remained unsigned when the 1982 season began, so El Tiante accepted a contract with Tabasco of the Mexican League. He finished his career with the playoff-bound California Angels in August and September 1982, when the Angels purchased his contract from Tabasco. Again, he did not appear in the A.L.C.S., which the Angels lost to the Brewers.

El Tiante has a restaurant outside Fenway Park serving the legions of fans that visit the ball-yard. Always affable, he is willing to have his picture taken with any fan, and unlike today's mercenary players, does not charge a dime for the privilege. Always a class act, Luis Tiant has maintained one into the ripe old age.