Baseball Remembers: Luis Tiant

My father passed away 17 years ago. Several years before his passing, a benign tumor in his spine had caused the muscles in one of his legs to atrophy, so he wasn’t as nimble on his feet as he’d been as a younger man. That robbed him, sadly, of the full experience of one of the things that never failed to put a smile on his face; Imitating Luis Tiant.

Dad did a perfect imitation of Tiant’s pitching motion. From his staccato method of bringing his glove down from over his head in the set position until it was even with his ample belly, followed by a surreptitious peak over his shoulder toward first base to hold the runner, until finally he would pirouette on his right leg, twisting his body around to face center field, before whipping back around to deliver the pitch.

My father had that motion down pat, at least in the eyes of me and my siblings. And years later, long after the leg wouldn’t allow him to perform for us anymore, the mere mention of Tiant would engender a twinkle in my father’s eye, and he’d stand up and at least mimic Looey’s glove motion and over-the-shoulder peak before bowing to the realities of his instability and sitting back down.

But that smile would remain, on my father’s face and all of ours as well.

Such was the magic of Luis Tiant to Red Sox fans.