No one who saw Luis Tiant pitch will ever forget him.
Man of a hundred windups, and a “good lookeeng sonafabeech” by his own estimation, ““El Tiante”” was one of the most charismatic players of his era — and with the possible exception of Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, no pitcher of the 1970s was more fun to watch.
Older- (and stouter-) looking than he actually was, Tiant seemed more like the kind of cat you might have seen dueling with Satchel Paige on a Latin American diamond of the 30s or 40s — like his southpaw father, Luis Tiant Sr., actually did — than someone who would be testing the stretchable limits of double-knit polyester at an Astroturf-carpeted concrete donut. He did TV ads for California Paints and Yankee Franks that sent up his Cuban accent (“Eet’s good to be weeth a wiener!”), and his penchant for smoking stogies in the shower was captured to amusing effect by countless photographers of the time.
But as comical as his shtick often appeared, there was nothing funny about having to face “El Tiante” with a game — or a season — on the line. Tiant was never better than when pitching as the summer turned to fall; a look at his career Septembers and Octobers reveal a 52-25 record with a 2.74 ERA, a 1.066 WHIP, a 2.48 strikeout-to-walk ratio, a .213 opponent batting average and a .243 BAbip, numbers which stack up quite nicely against (and in some cases surpass) the late-season stats of Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax and Tom Seaver.
It’s a shame then, that — not including the disastrous two-thirds of an inning that he pitched in relief for the Twins in the 1970 ALCS — “El Tiante” really only got to do his funky thing once in the post-season. And what a post-season it was. An efficient 3-hit, 8-strikeout takedown of the defending World Champion A’s in Game One of the 1975 ALCS, which would have been a shutout save for some clumsy Red Sox fielding. He then shut out the now-legendary Big Red Machine 6-0 at Fenway in the opening game of the 1975 World Series, and beat them again at Riverfront in Game Four, delivering a herculean 163 pitches in the process. If he couldn’t quite put ‘em away in Game Six, his place in baseball legend was already assured. And when he took his World Series loser’s share that winter and purchased a custom hairpiece made by Monsanto, the same company who manufactured artificial turf, his place in the Big Hair & Plastic Grass Hall of Fame was assured, as well.
Is “El Tiante” worthy of Cooperstown enshrinement? The BBWAA said no, even though his career numbers look pretty similar to Catfish Hunter’s. But there’s no question that Luis Tiant was very, very good indeed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Epstein is an award-winning journalist, writer, editor, raconteur and renaissance man, whose acclaimed book Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ’76, is available wherever you buy books. You can also find him on Twitter at @BigHairPlasGras.
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The Hall of Very Good™ Class of 2014 is presented by Out of the Park Developments, the creators of the wildly popular baseball simulation game Out of the Park Baseball. Out of the Park Developments has made a generous donation to The Hall.
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