Lewis Tiant, legendary ace of 1975 AL champion Red Sox, dies at 83 – The Boston Globe

But his glory days were his eight seasons in Boston, where he won 122 games and was at the center of several pennant races with a magical style that Globe writer Peter Gammons called his “marionette abracadabra.”

“He looked a bit like baseball royalty,” wrote Globe columnist Harold Kice. “Stocky, thick-chested, short-armed. Was this one of the princes of pitching?”

Mr. Tyent's chiropractic motion — “wheeling and spinning on the mound like a picture of a Bavarian clock tower,” New York writer Roger Angel observed — confused batters who had no idea when and where the ball would come to them.

“He doesn't even look at you when he throws the ball,” former Yankees catcher Thurman Munson said.

Mr. Tyent's unpredictability amplified two of his greatest qualities – his resilience and of course his reliability in winning contests.

Manager Darrell Johnson said in 1975, “If a guy put a gun to my head and said, 'If you lose this game, I'm going to pull the trigger,' I'd want Louis Tient to pitch that game. Red Sox.”

Luis Clemente Tiant Vega was born in the Havana municipality of Marianao in 1940 and named after his father, a legendary left-handed player for the New York Cubans in the Negro Leagues in the 1930s and 40s. While he showed early promise on the mound, Mr. Taint was cut by the Havana Sugar Kings, a minor league affiliate of the last-place Washington Senators, whose agent suggested he become a fruit salesman.

Mr. Taint, who posted a 229-172 record in 573 major league appearances with 187 complete games and was a three-time All-Star, enjoyed his prime years with the Red Sox after two teams disposed of him. The Cleveland Indians, who had signed him out of the Mexican League in 1961, traded him to the Minnesota Twins in 1969 after he struggled through a 9–20 campaign, his only losing record in six seasons in Cleveland.

After the Twins released the injured Mr. Taint after one season, the Red Sox picked him up to fill a gap in their rotation and stuck with him in 1971 after going 1-7.

“I never gave up,” he said. “As long as I can get the ball to home plate, I kept telling myself, I'm going to stay in baseball.”

Mr. Taint's renaissance began in 1972 when he won 15 games, 11 of them after the start of August, and kept his teammates in the playoff chase until the final weekend of the season.

Mr. Tiant, who sported a scruffy mustache and smoked cigars in clubhouse showers and whirlpools, was a favorite teammate for making fun of his colleagues, whom he gave nicknames such as “Polaco” (Karl Yastrzemski), “Frankenstein” (Carlton Fisk), and “Pinocchio.” ” (Rico Petrocelli).

“Lewis knew exactly when to turn a bus ride into something beyond 'Saturday Night Live,'” said former Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans.

But on the mound, Mr. Tiant was a relentless and exciting competitor who rival Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee likened to a symphony: “Hard at the beginning, a little sweet in the middle, slow stuff and then the big explosion. the end.”

Mr. Taint was at his most dominant and dramatic during the 1975 pennant run when he delivered half a dozen masterpieces late in the season after a two-week layoff with a bad back.

“You can talk about anybody else on the team all you want, but Taint is the man,” said former Baltimore Orioles star Jim Palmer.

After pitching a no-hitter into the eighth inning of a 3-1 decision against the Detroit Tigers on September 11, Mr. Tiant shutout Baltimore (pronounced “LOO-ie, LOO-e”) on September 16 and Cleveland on September 26.

He then held the Oakland A's to an unearned run in a 7–1 victory in the American League Championship Series opener.

“He's the Fred Astaire of baseball, dancing his way to victory,” declared A's slugger Reggie Jackson. “He had that crowd in the hoopla.”

Then, after upsetting the Cincinnati Reds in the first game of the World Series, Mr. Taint defeated them again in Game 4 on the road.

“We haven't had anyone like that in the National League,” Reds captain Pete Rose said. “No one throws those high-spinning curveballs that take two minutes to come down.”

Although Mr. Taint won 21 games for the third-place club in 1976 and 25 more over the next two seasons – including a shutout of the Toronto Blue Jays that guaranteed the Red Sox a divisional playoff with the New York Yankees in 1978 – management suggested he Salle only signed a one-year contract, when he will be 38 years old.

“They never took me seriously in their discussions,” said Mr. Tient. “They treated me like some old fool.”

So Mr. Tianot left for the Yankees as a free agent and won 13 games the following year.

“When they let Luis Tiant go to New York, they tore out our hearts and souls,” Yastrzemski said.

Mr. Taint played two years in the Bronx before finishing his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates and California Angels.

“It's always nice to have someone uglier than you in the clubhouse,” joked Angels teammate Fred Lynn, who played with Mr. Taint in Boston.

Mr. Tiant retired in 1982 after beating the Red Sox for his final victory. After stints as a Yankees scout and a minor league coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox, Mr. Tianot coached for four years at the Savannah (Ga.) College of Art and Design.

In 2001, he signed with the Red Sox as a pitching coach and special assignment advisor for their Lowell affiliate.

“When I'm in Boston, I always feel like I'm at home,” Mr. Tianut said. “I almost cried, I feel so good.”

In 1975, two years after the Cuban Revolution, tears flowed as he saw both parents for the first time since 1961. After colleague George McGovern delivered a letter from Senator Edward Brooke to Cuban Premier Fidel Castro, Mr. Tiente's mother and father were allowed to visit their son indefinitely.

“I never thought I'd see them again and I think they think the same,” Mr Tient said. “But it happened.”

His parents arrived in August, when the Red Sox were comfortably leading the division. His father, wearing a Red Sox cap, threw out the first pitch before a game with the Angels, then watched his son take the mound.

Yet even after reuniting with his parents, the pull of his homeland remained strong, and after decades of diplomatic wrangling, Mr Tient returned to the island for the first time in 2007.

“I have to go to Cuba before I die,” said Mr. Tiant, whose emotional return was chronicled in a documentary, “Lost Sons of Havana.” “This is going to complete my life.”

Although his real home was Boston.

“Lewis embodies everything we love about the game: resilience, passion and an undeniable sense of belonging to something bigger than himself,” Red Sox chairman Tom Warner said Tuesday. “But what made Lewis unforgettable was his vibrant personality. He was a gifted storyteller, always sharing stories filled with humor, honesty and enduring loyalty to his teammates.

He also offered a taste of his country to the Fenway faithful with an El Tiente food stand on Jersey Street outside the ballpark.

“This is my second country,” Mr. Tient said. “The people here are great to me, good to my family. Wherever I go, and I've been to a lot of places, there's no better place for me.”

John Papille, whom he considered a son, Mr. Tient is survived by his wife Maria and children Louise, Isabel and Daniel.