Luis Tiant, the charismatic Cuban who pitched the Red Sox to the brink of a championship, dies at 83
Luis Tiant has died at the age of 83
BOSTON (AP) — Luis Tiant, the charismatic Cuban with a horseshoe mustache and mesmerizing windup who pitched the Red Sox to the brink of a World Series championship and pitched himself to the doorstep of the baseball Hall of Fame, has died. He was 83.
Major League Baseball announced his death in a post on X on Tuesday, and the Red Sox confirmed that he died at his home in Maine.
“Today is a very sad day,” Fred Lynn, a teammate in both Boston and California, posted on X. “A Big game pitcher, a funny genuine guy who loved his family and baseball. I miss him already.”
With a swaggering style and an iconic wiggling windup that froze batters in the box, “El Tiante” was a three-time All-Star and four-time 20-game winner whose greatest individual season came with Cleveland in 1968, when he went 21-9 with 19 complete games and nine shutouts — four of them in a row. His 1.60 ERA was the best in the AL in half a century and he finished fifth in AL Most Valuable Player voting; 31-game winner Denny McLain won it, as well as the league's Cy Young Award.
