Red Sox great Luis Tiant, who spent eight years with the team and whose pitching pushed them to the World Series in 1975, has died, the team confirmed Tuesday. Tiant, who pitched for Boston from 1971 to 1978, was 83 years old.
“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.”
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Known as “El Tiante,” Tiant was a three-time All-Star whose greatest individual season came in 1968, when he went 21-9 with 19 complete games and nine shutouts — four of them in a row. But it was his 1.60 ERA — the best in the AL in half a century — that, combined with Bob Gibson’s 1.12 mark in the NL, helped convince baseball to lower the pitching mound to give batters more of a chance.
The son of a Negro Leagues star, the younger Tiant was 229-172 in all with a 3.30 ERA and 2,416 strikeouts. He had 187 complete games and 47 shutouts in a 19-year career spent mostly with Cleveland and Boston.
His storied run with the Red Sox still ranks fourth overall in the organization for shutouts (26) and innings pitched (1,774.2) fifth overall for all-time wins (122) and starts (238), tied at sixth overall for completed games (113), and seventh overall for strikeouts (1,075).
He came to Boston after six years with Cleveland and a year with Minnesota and also pitched for the Yankees and Angels, according to the MLB.
Boston Red Sox
His unique delivery and big personality made him a fan favorite.
"He was a pitcher with incredible talent, accomplishing so much with a style uniquely his own. But what truly set Luis apart was his zest for life, embracing every moment with an infectious spirit, even in the face of his many challenges. He channeled everything into his love for the game and the people around him," Rex Sox owner John Henry said in a media statement.
“Luis had a style of pitching that was as memorable as it was effective, but to me, the rarer gift was his ability to lift you up with just a smile,” said Red Sox President & CEO Sam Kennedy said in a statement.
We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Luis Tiant. In a Major League career that spanned 19 seasons, "El Tiante" made three All-Star teams and won 20 or more games four times. Tiant won two ERA titles in the American League - one in 1968 for Cleveland, and another in… pic.twitter.com/wVNQj9f1pc
— MLB (@MLB) October 8, 2024
His death comes one week after that of all-time baseball hits leader Pete Rose, whose Cincinnati Reds faced Tiant’s Red Sox in the 1975 World Series — still considered one of the greatest in baseball history.
Tiant won Game 1, shutting out the Reds, threw 155 pitches in a complete game victory in Game 4 and was back on the mound for eight innings of Game 6, which Boston won on Carlton Fisk’s home run in the bottom of the 12th.
After his retirement, Tiant was inducted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame but never made the national shrine in Cooperstown, New York, receiving a high of 30.9% of the votes in 1988, his first year on the ballot.
Tiant passed away at his home in Maine Tuesday morning. He leaves behind a wife, Maria, and four children, Luis Jr., Isabel, Daniel and John Papile.