Luis Tiant (1940-2024)

I wish I knew more about this photo. It was taken by my father on Camera Day, August 1970, at Met Stadium in Bloomington, Minn. Tiant was one of a dozen players with whom we got our picture taken that day, and he seems very chummy, not aloof at all, but I don't remember the moment. I do remember liking him. I do remember wondering why he only stayed with the Twins for a little while. Why did he come? Why did he go?�

He came because on Dec. 10, 1969, the Twins traded Dean Chance, Bob Miller, Ted Uhlander, and Graig Nettles*,�four players in all, to the Cleveland Indians for pitchers Stan Williams and Luis Tiant. It's an odd trade. We seem interested in pitching but gave up two pitchers in the process, while the pitchers we got were coming off of off-years, Tiant particularly. In 1968, he had a season for the ages, going 21-9 and leading the American League with a miniscule 1.60 ERA. But he didn't even get one Cy Young vote because the Tigers' Denny McLain went 31-6 with a 1.96 ERA and won the Cy unanimously. Tiant's miniscule ERA wasn't even much talked up because Bob Gibson's was minisculer: 1.12 ERA, the modern record. Gibson and McLain not only won Cys but MVPs, while Tiant was all but forgotten. And the next season, after they lowered the mound, Tiant led the league in a bunch of stuff you don't want to lead the league in: walks (129) homeruns allowed (37), and losses (20).

*�Yes, this was a bad trade or the Twins. Over the next 20 years, Nettles would accumulate 65 bWAR and become a legendary hot-corner defender in the World Series. He should be in the Hall of Fame�or at least have his number retired by the New York Yankees.**

** Yes, his number (No. 9)�IS retired by the New York Yankees, except not in his honor. It's for an earlier wearer, Roger Maris, and I guess you can't retire it twice.***

*** Actually, you can, and the Yankees have. No. 8 is retired for both Yogi Berra and his mentor Bill Dickey. Anyway, onward.

I'm curious if Tiant was considered the big get for the Twins in that trade. Stan Williams wound up having the better season, going 10-1 from the bullpen with a 1.99 ERA. Tiant started well, going 6-0 through the first two months of the season with a 3.12 ERA, including a shutout of Detroit in April in which he gave up as many hits (3, all singles) as he got himself (3-4, including a double); but in his last start in May, he heard something pop in his right shoulder and x-rays revealed a fractured scapular. Out for two months. (Who did the Twins call up to replace him? A 19-year-old curveball pitcher named Bert Blyleven. Welcome to the Show, kid.)

So did the Twins lose confidence in Tiant after all that? They outright released him in March 1971, he was picked up by the Atlanta Braves, they released him in May, at which point the Boston Red Sox picked him up, and, into his 30s, Tiant showed everyone what they'd missed. Eventually. That year, 1971, he went 1-7 with a 4.85 ERA, but the next year he again led the Majors in ERA, 1.91, and for the next four years won 20, 22, 18 and 21 games for a Red Sox team that kept challenging for the pennant. He also went 1-0 in the '75 ALCS and 2-0 against the vaunted Big Red Machine in the magical 1975 World Series. That's when Tiant, with his twisting, second-base-facing windup, truly became a legend. He won Games 1 (five-hit shutout) and 4 (CG), and, after several days rain delay, started Game 6. But in the 5th inning, the Reds scored 3, the big blow a triple by Ken Griffey (not yet “Sr.”), and they got 2 more in the 7th. All of which set the stage for blasts by Bernie Carbo and Carlton Fisk. In other words, the only games the BoSox won that Series were games Tiant started. Wait, it's better: the only games the Cincinnati Reds lost in both the 1975 an '76 postseasons were those three Tiant starts. Otherwise they swept the table.

Should he be in the Hall? He lasted with the Sox until 1978, went over to the Yankees for two years, Pirates for one and Angels for one, and retired with a 229-172 record, a 3.30 ERA, an 2416 Ks, at a time when just Walter Johnson and Bob Gibson were north of 3,000. His bWAR is right on the cusp, 65.6, and Joe Posnanski, for one, thinks he should get extra points for character�as in being one: the windup, the cigars, the jovial nature, selling sausages outside Fenway. Part of Pos'�argument is that guys get dinged for bad behavior (cf., Curt Schilling) so why not the opposite for good guys? Just look at that photo. If that's not an ambassador of the game, I don't know one.