A Tribute to Three Twirlers, Pt. I

 

I should have done this when all three first died. Maybe it would've helped our World Series karma. But belatedly, here is the beginning of my tribute to three wonderful pitchers from back in the day:  Luis Tiant, Fernando Valenzuela, and Rudy May...

I went to see Luis Tiant pitch against the Yankees in Fenway Park on June 26^th, 1975. It was a Thursday night, a showdown series with the Red Sox, who were a-game-and-a-half behind us in the AL East. All I could get was an obstructed view seat, behind a steel pillar.

 

First batter, Tiant hits Walt “No Neck” Williams with a pitch. Roy White drew a walk, and I’m thinking El Tiante is off, maybe we can win this. Chris Chambliss lines a ball to right, really hammers it…and Bernie Carbo, of all people, makes a great catch against the wall—so great he knocks himself out and falls to the ground in a daze. 

 

Carbo is so out of it that Williams tags up at second and goes all the way around to score, because back in 1975 even back-up outfielders named No Neck knew how to run. And that was it—for the Yankees.  

 

In the time it took them to peel Carbo off the warning track and prop him up again, Luis Tiant did whatever he needed to do to turn things around. He did not give up another run. 

The whole rest of the night, sitting behind that damned pole, I got to see Tiant pitch in sections. On one side of the pole was his good right arm. On the other was his big old gut, both frozen there in his damned hesitation wind-up. 

 

The Sox beat us that night, 6-1. They beat us the next night, 9-1, pushing us out of first. They won three-of-four, and that was really it for your New York Yankees that season.

 

The Sox had one of those marvelous, miraculous seasons, and lost a heartbreaking World Series to the Big Red Machine (one of those heartbreaking seasons we Yankees fans have come to understand more and more under Brian Cashman). 

Tiant almost won it all for them. He pitched a five-hit shutout in Game One, and started the game-winning rally with a single off Don Gullett—after not having hit all year.  He then hung on to win Game Four, 5-4, pitching the sort of game we will never see again, a 155-pitch, complete-game victory.

The Reds finally caught up to him in Game Six, but even then he didn’t lose, the Sox rallying on those dramatic, incredible, woo-hoo home runs by Carbo and Carlton Fisk, when all New England danced, and they rang the church bells at midnight, and blah-blah-blah.

Boy, I hated those guys, growing up as a Yankees fan in Massachusetts! But I gotta admit, it was hard to hate Luis Tiant, even then. Already bald, a cigar jammed into his mouth after every win like some kind of Cuban Red Auerbach. That gut. 

El Tiante’s roots went way deep in the game. His father, also Luis Tiant, was a star for the old New York Cubans. He played his last eight seasons in New York, going 9-0 and winning the Negro League championship for the Cubans, and he could have had those seasons for the Yankees, if not for the soulless ratfucks who kept the sport segregated.

Tiant, Sr., looked like a stick compared to his son, just 5-10 and 150 pounds, probably because he had bad teeth. (He used to take out his dentures and twirl them around on the team bus.) He was also a southpaw, which seems really strange, but somehow his son was still a chip off the old block.

Tiant, Jr., started playing for the Mexico City Tigers, in 1959. He made the Indians by 1964, and was a winner right away, even for bad Cleveland teams. In 1968, he went 21-9 with a 1.60 ERA, 9 shutouts, and 264 K’s in 258 innings. Impressive, even if it was “The Year of the Pitcher.”

He also blew out his arm, losing 20 games in 1969. He had to reinvent himself in Boston as a control artist, an amalgam of changing speeds and funky windups. He won over 20 games three times for the Red Sox, and I was just glad it was Mike Torrez we had to face in that 1978 playoff game in Boston, not Luis Tiant.

We signed him ourselves the next year, because that’s how the Yankees used to operate, stealing the heart away from the teams we were trying to beat. Munson died and Goose got injured, and we didn’t come close that season. But one quiet Sunday afternoon in Oakland, July 8^th, 1979, Luis Tiant went out and came one hit short of pitching a perfect game. He gave up a single to Rickey Henderson, leading off the fourth inning. (He got Rickey for the last out of the game.)

One hit short of a perfect game, one hit surrendered to one of the greatest players in the history of baseball, for 38-year-old Luis Tiant. It would have been a great last touch to an amazing career. But he was great enough as it was. It was an honor to have him on our team, an honor to watch him pitch against us.

And no, he did not appear on an episode of Baretta in the 1970s.

RIP, Luis Tiant.