Luis Tiant, Red Sox Great, Passes Away at 83

Before athletes like Ray Lewis and Mike Tyson lent their names to cigars, there was El Tiante. On Oct. 8, Luis “El Tiante” Tiant, the Cuban-born pitcher, passed away at the age of 83.

He is best known for the eight years he spent with the Boston Red Sox. During his nearly two-decade career, he amassed more than 2,416 strikeouts and 47 shutouts over nearly 3,500 innings pitched. He was a three-time All-Star and two-time American League ERA leader.

Tiant was born in Marianao, a suburb of Havana, in 1940. A Cleveland Indians scout spotted a young Tiant, who then went to the Mexican league before joining the Indians. He would play for the Indians, Twins, Red Sox, Yankees, Pirates and Angels before retiring in 1982.

From his time with the Indians, Tiant was a known cigar smoker saying that he would smoke cigars both before and after games, though never during the ones he pitched in. After retiring, he worked with his family to launch the El Tiante cigar brand in 2011, first working with Tabacalera Tambor before moving production to My Father Cigars S.A. in 2012. Unfortunately, even after the move to My Father, the El Tiante brand failed to catch on as intended.

“Today we lost a great man,” said Mike Bellody, who once served as the president of Tiant Cigar Group, LLC. “Luis was one of the kindest humans I’ve ever known.”

While Tiant was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame, he is not a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, though that could change. His story, especially his pioneering status as a star Cuban pitcher who played in the U.S. during the rise of Fidel Castro, has been chronicled in many books and a documentary, The Lost Son of Havana.

Image David Shankbone via Wikimedia