Luis Tiant Passes Away

[Steve102]

Red Sox Mourn the Passing of Luis Tiant

 

[Clonamery]

RIP Luis. If you were a kid (66-79), you imitated his style whether it was wiffle ball, pick up games or little league practice.

 

[turkeyneck]

Red Sox Mourn the Passing of Luis Tiant

One of the great Boston sports characters.

 

[RobertWeathers]

RIP Luis. If you were a kid (66-79), you imitated his style whether it was wiffle ball, pick up games or little league practice.

Yep.....and we had 23 windups and deliveries to choose from.

RIP El Tiante.

 

[maust]

EL TIANTE!!!
Vaya con Dios! Gracias por los recuerdos!!!

 

[maust]

Yep.....and we had 23 windups and deliveries to choose from.

Every one of which afforded a better look at second than at the batter and usually ended up going straight to the on deck circle.

 

[jimnance]

El Tiante!!
Mucho magnifico!!

Great pitcher.
Maybe the most fun to watch Red Sox player evah.
That delivery was worth the price of admission. Maybe most- imitated delivery of all time.
He kept the players and media laughing.
I remember one reporter saying Looie
used to walk around the clubhouse buttnaked after a game except wearing his expensive imported loafers and smoking one of his private-stash Cuban cigars. He did interviews like that.
Vaya con dios!

 

[Bill Lee]

Strange how I can pretty much name every starting player on the '74 Red Sox, and very few on any team after '74.

 

[1960Pats]

Yep.....and we had 23 windups and deliveries to choose from.

RIP El Tiante.

Very sad news. I have a great memory of him striking out Gorman Thomas on three straight pitches and then waddling off to the dugout as Thomas stared at him with a wtf just happened look.

Back in the 90's I was coaching kids in baseball and I actually used some Tiant moves in batting practice to teach the kids how to stay balanced. It helped and the kids liked it. They ended up calling the pitches El Tiantes.

 

[Zuma]

When I was a pitcher in little league in the 70’s I used to windup like Tiant sometimes just for fun. Coach hated that.

@Clonamery I just read your post after I posted mine…similar. I think a lot of kids especially in New England imitated Tiant. He was so unique.

 

[jmt57]

I remember going to a game with my parents and younger sister.

It was her first Fenway experience. Her eyes grew like saucers when we walked up the runway and she saw the field for the first time live. Such a more vibrant color and scene compared to television; that was her only previous comparison.

It was a game in the midst of a close pennant race against Oakland. The A's had one of their aces, maybe Vida Blue on the mound. The game was a magnificent pitcher's duel. The stands were packed, fans were crazy loud. Tiant came out on top, winning to a standing ovation.

With that, my sister was hooked. While she later became a big Pats fan, since that night she has been a lifetime hardcore Red Sox fan.


RIP, El Tiante.

 

[captain stone]

When I was a pitcher in little league in the 70’s I used to windup like Tiant sometimes just for fun. Coach hated that.

@Clonamery I just read your post after I posted mine…similar. I think a lot of kids especially in New England imitated Tiant. He was so unique.

Whenever I pitched while playing wiffle ball, I would use one of the Tiant windups. I also would bat like Yaz my first few years of Little League & back-yard wiffle ball even though I was right-handed; my stance naturally adjusted as the years went by...

 

[captain stone]

Strange how I can pretty much name every starting player on the '74 Red Sox, and very few on any team after '74.

That staff should've included Curtis, McGlothen & Garman... Lonborg & Ken Brett too.

 

[Zuma]

Whenever I pitched while playing wiffle ball, I would use one of the Tiant windups. I also would bat like Yaz my first few years of Little League & back-yard wiffle ball even though I was right-handed; my stance naturally adjusted as the years went by...

I was born in ‘67 the year he won the Triple Crown…hence my middle name is Carl.

Wrong team but the Joe Morgan arm flap thing was fun too.

 

[jimnance]

Whenever I pitched while playing wiffle ball, I would use one of the Tiant windups. I also would bat like Yaz my first few years of Little League & back-yard wiffle ball even though I was right-handed; my stance naturally adjusted as the years went by...

LMFAO.
I did exactly both of those things.
Cap, I think we got a lot of company there.
The most imitated pitching delivery and batting stance of all time

 

[jimnance]

I was born in ‘67 the year he won the Triple Crown…hence my middle name is Carl.

Wrong team but the Joe Morgan arm flap thing was fun too.

Back then, we had more colorful characters in the game: Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, Al " Mad Monk" Hrabosky( he was a St.Louis Cardinal but damn he was fun to watch, stomping all around the mound while yelling obscentities,etc.,
Billy Martin with all his crazy antics like piling a foot of dirt on home plate which he dug up on his hands and knees ?after being ejected from a game.,etc

 

[maust]

Back then, we had more colorful characters in the game: Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, Al " Mad Monk" Hrabosky( he was a St.Louis Cardinal but damn he was fun to watch, stomping all around the mound while yelling obscentities,etc.,
Billy Martin with all his crazy antics like piling a foot of dirt on home plate which he dug up on his hands and knees ?after being ejected from a game.,etc

Wasn't all that long ago we had a pretty colorful collection of beloved 'idiots' here. The '04 Sox had more than their fair share of characters

 

[Force Zero Boomer]

RIP Luis. If you were a kid (66-79), you imitated his style whether it was wiffle ball, pick up games or little league practice.

I was just imitating his style a few days ago, playing wiffleball with my daughter. She was laughing, and I told her about Luis Legend.

 

[captain stone]

…Wrong team but the Joe Morgan arm flap thing was fun too.

Oh yeah; it reminded me later of Rodney Dangerfield as Thornton Mellon in Back To School just before he performed the Triple Lindy…

 

[captain stone]

Back then, we had more colorful characters in the game: Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, Al " Mad Monk" Hrabosky( he was a St.Louis Cardinal but damn he was fun to watch, stomping all around the mound while yelling obscentities,etc.,
Billy Martin with all his crazy antics like piling a foot of dirt on home plate which he dug up on his hands and knees ?after being ejected from a game.,etc

I saw one of the first, if not the very first, starts by Fidrych at Fenway in 1976… I remember he was winning by just a run in the bottom of the 9th when his 3rd baseman Ellie Rodriguez made an error; the Bird went directly to him and told him not to worry because he’s getting the next guy out anyway… which he of course did.

While the Sox were floundering that season, the Bird was flying… Damn shame it didn’t last.