The next player added to my future custom card set, "Classic Baseball" is "El Tiante" Luis Tiant, one of the great pitchers of his era and one of the great personalities in the history of the game, showing him early in his Hall of Fame worthy career as a member of the Cleveland Indians:
By the time he finished his career in 1982, 18 years later, he finished with a 229-172 record, with a 3.30 E.R.A., 49
shutouts and 2416 strikeouts, with two seasons of sub-2.00 E.R.A., four
20-win campaigns as well as three 200+ strikeout years.
1968 was especially a year to remember for the righty ace, as he gave the Cleveland Indians a
1-2 punch on the mound any team would envy, teaming up with
flamethrower Sam McDowell.
All Tiant did that season for the Cleveland Indians was go 21-9 with
nine shutouts over 32 starts, 19 of which he completed, and sport a
sparkling 1.60 E.R.A. along with 264 strikeouts!
He also threw nine shutouts while tossing while allowing only 5.3 hits per nine innings, with a stellar 0.871 WHIP.
Forget Cy Young Award, those are MVP numbers!
But
as we all know, sadly for him this came the same season as some guy
from Detroit named Denny McLain put together a 30-win season for a World
Championship Tigers team.
Talk about your tough luck!
As a kid in Brooklyn, New York in the late 70's I remember him with
the Yankees, and always thought he looked like some cool grampa who was
always cracking jokes. In other words, I loved him!
After getting 30.9% support in his first year on the Hall of Fame
ballot in 1988, he never got close again to those numbers, topping out
at 18.0% in his final year of eligibility in 2002.
Do I think he's a Hall of Fame pitcher? Tough call based on
statistics alone. However I do feel that when you add in his
personality, his long-lasting mark on the game in that time and place,
he should be in.