Page 96 - 1975 BoSox

’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL 89
ball’s most famous Septembers only ve years earlier, said, “I’ve never heard anything like that in my life. But I’ll tell you one thing: Tiant deserved every bit of it.”8
After clutch victories over both the Tigers and Orioles, Tiant lost his nal start, on October 3 in Tiger Stadium, a game that clinched the pennant for Detroit on the next to last day of the season. ough he was essentially a relief pitcher for the rst four months of the season, Luis nished 15-6 and won his second ERA title (1.91) and the Comeback Player of the Year award. By leading the Red Sox into an unexpected race for the pennant, Tiant won the hearts of the Red Sox fans. He would never lose them.
He capped his comeback by winning 20 for the second time in 1973, while the Red Sox again nished second. e next year Luis won his 20th by August 23 to give his team a seemingly safe seven-game lead. But the Red Sox went into a horri c teamwide batting slump that was responsible for a disastrous fade — they were 8-20 during one stretch—and consigned them to a third-place nish, seven games behind Baltimore. Considered an MVP candidate in August,Tiant won only two of his nal seven decisions, although he continued to pitch well. In the four starts after his 20th victory, he lost 3-0, 1-0, and 2-0, and then had a no-decision in a game in which he gave up one run in nine innings. He nished 22-13 for the season with a league-leading seven shutouts.
Tiant was revered by his teammates in Boston, much as he had been in Cleveland and Minnesota. In 1968 omas Fitzpatrick wrote an article about Tiant in Sport entitled “ e Most Popular Indian.” When the Twins released Tiant, their longtime publicist Tom Mee called the scene in the locker room as Luis said goodbye to his teammates “the most forlorn experience I’ve ever had in baseball.”9
e Red Sox had recently been a fractured team, but Luis kept his teammates laughing, largely by making fun of them and himself. He called Yastrzemski “Polacko” and Fisk “Frankenstein.” After the 1972
season, Red Sox pitcher John Curtis wrote a newspaper story about trying to explain to his wife why he loved Luis Tiant. Dwight Evans would later say, “Unless you’ve played with him, you can’t understand what Luis means to a team.”10
Tiant’s physical appearance was part of his charm. Red Smith once wrote that he looked like “Pancho Villa after a tough week of looting and burning.”11 Boston writer Tim Horgan later suggested that Tiant’s “visage belongs on Mt. Rushmore.”12 A barrel-chested man who looked fatter than he really was,Tiant would often emerge from the shower with a cigar in his mouth, look at his naked body in the mirror and declare himself to be a (in his exaggerated Spanish accent): “good-lookeen sonofabeech.”
Luis struggled for most of the 1975 season. While the Red Sox took over the division lead for good in late June, 34-year-old Tiant was seen more and more as an aging back-of-the-rotation starter. He may have had a reason for his struggles: His heart and mind were occupied with a long-overdue family reunion.