Growing up with El Tiante’s baseball cards

Growing up with El Tiante’s baseball cards: We remember the great Luis Tiant, who was born in Marianao, Cuba on this day in 1940 and died in 2024. Luis was born in a family of pitchers.  His father was Luis Eleuterio Tiant, who pitched professionally in the old Negro Leagues…

Growing up with El Tiante’s baseball cards – American Thinker https://t.co/fukonh5Buu

— Silvio Canto. Jr. (@silvio_canto) November 24, 2024

We remember the great Luis Tiant, who was born in Marianao, Cuba on this day in 1940 and died in 2024.

Luis was born in a family of pitchers.  His father was Luis Eleuterio Tiant, who pitched professionally in the old Negro Leagues in the U.S. as well as in Mexico.  Unfortunately, he never got to the majors because of the color line, but it happened.  My father did remember Luis Senior in the Cuban leagues.  He was a nasty left-hander!

Our family came to the U.S. in 1964, and it coincided with Tiant’s debut season with what they used to call the Cleveland Indians, or “los indios,” as we called them.  It was a stellar debut: 10-4, 9 complete games, 3 shutouts, and a 2.83 ERA.  It didn’t take long for my brother and me to get his baseball card, along with Tony Oliva, who won the batting title and Rookie of the Year.  It was a good year for the Cuban rookies.

A few years later, Luis led the AL in 1968 with a 1.60 ERA!  By the late 1960s, El Tiante was one of the best pitchers in baseball.  Back then, we had very little baseball on TV, so the daily sports page kept our family updated on Tiant’s starts.  It was a thrill to have my dad open the newspaper and say that Tiant had thrown another complete game or something that pitchers used to do back then. 

Suddenly, he suffered a series of arm injuries in 1970–71 and was released and passed up by several teams who thought that he was finished.  I remember watching him start a game, leave with an arm injury, and it seemed as though our favorite, El Tiante, would never pitch again.

Everything changed when the Red Sox gave him a chance in 1972: 15 wins and an AL-leading 1.91 ERA.  Tiant won 81 games over the next 4 seasons and became the darling of Fenway Park.  I got to see a lot of Luis in those years because I was going to school in Maryland, and the Orioles-Red Sox rivalry was wonderful baseball.  Watching El Tiante go through that winding motion at the old Memorial Stadium is just a great memory.

Up in New England, they remember Tiant and the 1975 post-season.  He shut down the A’s in game 1 of the ALCS and beat the Reds in Games 1 and 4 of the World Series.  And his aforementioned father had a chance to watch him pitch.  It was a wonderful post-season for father and son.  By the way, his 10-inning, 163-pitch complete game in Game 4 was maybe the best Tiant ever.  The Red Sox needed that victory to tie the series, and El Tiante did his job.

Luis Tiant retired with 229 wins, a 3.30 ERA, and 189 complete games.  In my opinion, he should be in the Hall of Fame.  Let’s hope he goes in the next time around.

It’s a shame that he passed away and we won’t hear him give that acceptance speech.  Nevertheless, I want future generations of baseball to learn about the man with that winding motion that kept batters seeing psychiatrists.

PS: Check out my blog for posts, podcasts, and videos.