Former Boston Red Sox great Luis Tiant before Game 5 of the American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Houston Astros Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021, at Fenway Park in Boston. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
Red Sox legend Luis Tiant, a titan of baseball and life, remains deserving of baseball’s highest honor
There goes one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived.
Not just in Red Sox history, but in all of baseball’s storied past.
Luis Tiant may not be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, which to me seems like a gross injustice. Nevertheless, the seemingly always smiling right-hander from Marianao, Cuba who died Tuesday morning at the age of 83 deserves nothing less than the designation of one of the best to ever do it.
That’s how I will remember him. I wouldn’t be born for nine more years by the time Tiant pitched his final big league game in 1982. I never saw him pitch at Fenway Park, but make no mistake, Luis Tiant remained a beloved and steady presence at America’s Most Beloved Ballpark.
My lasting image of Tiant will be of the many times he was welcomed back as the distinguished Red Sox alumni of the evening. Without fail, every time highlights of Tiant’s famous windup would be played on the video board and the shot would transition to him sitting in his luxury box, Tiant always made the most of the moment to give back the love that so many in Red Sox Nation had given to him.
Many of the welcomed back Sox legends of yesteryear would offer a simple smile and a wave or two. Not Tiant. No, El Tiante would grasp his hands together, raise them in a self-clasping handshake and wave them repeatedly while often mouthing “thank you.”
It’s a gesture most often correlated with the winning fighter at a boxing match — something I’d imagine the Cuban native witnessed plenty of in his day. The gesture has also been used to symbolize friendship.
What a fitting blend for a man who overcame so much, and did so with a champions’ resolve and a tender heart.
Tiant, a member of three separate Hall of Fames — inducted into the Red Sox Hall in 1997, the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Hall in 2002, the Venezuelan Baseball Hall in 2009 — and a member of Baseball Reliquary’s “Shrine of the Eternals,” was passed over by Cooperstown from 1988 through 2002, then again by eras committees in 2011, 2014, 2017, 2021 and 2022.
What on earth were they thinking?
To be a Hall of Famer, of course, means that you were among the best of the best of your era. Tiant was unquestionably that.
From his debut in the majors with the Cleveland Indians in 1964 — he spun a four-hit, 11-strikeout shutout in a 3-0 victory over the Yankees (a splendid foreshadowing of his famed Boston days to come) — until the early years of the 1980s, Tiant was sheerly dominant.
