Luis Eleuterio Tiant Bravo () (August 27, 1906 – December 10, 1976) was a

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

Negro league baseball The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

, as well as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. He also performed with barnstorming teams. Tiant's career extended from 1926 through 1948. In the Negro leagues, he played for the Havana Red Sox, Cuban Stars West, Cuban House of David/Pollock's Cuban Stars, and

New York Cubans The New York Cubans were a Negro league baseball team that played during the 1930s and from 1939 to 1950. Despite playing in the Negro leagues, the team occasionally employed white-skinned Hispanic baseball players as well, because Hispanics in ...

, between 1928 and 1947.SABR BioProject: Luis E. Tiant
/ref> Tiant featured a

screwball A screwball is a baseball and fastpitch softball pitch that is thrown so as to break in the opposite direction of a slider or curveball. Depending on the pitcher's arm angle, the ball may also have a sinking action. The pitch is sometimes known a ...

Bill James George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. ...

and

Rob Neyer Rob Neyer (born June 22, 1966) is an American baseball writer known for his use of statistical analysis or sabermetrics. He started his career working for Bill James and STATS and then joined ESPN.com as a columnist and blogger from 1996 to 2011 ...

ranked it the seventh-best screwball of all time. Tiant's son, Luis Clemente Tiant, was a major league starting pitcher from 1964 to 1982. In August 1975, the elder Tiant and his wife were granted permission by Cuban leader

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...

to visit the United States, so they could watch their son pitch in the major leagues. The Tiants' visit to the US is featured in the 2009 documentary film about their son, ''The Lost Son of Havana''. The Tiants remained in the US, and the elder Luis Tiant died 16 months later in

Milton, Massachusetts Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States and an affluent suburb of Boston. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 census. Milton is the birthplace of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and architect Buckminster Fuller. ...

. He was often referred to as "Luis Tiant Sr." by contemporary press to differentiate him from his son.

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External links

an
Baseball-Reference Black Baseball stats
an
Seamheads
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tiant, Luis Sr. 1906 births 1976 deaths Baseball players from Havana Cuban House of David players Cuban Stars (West) players New York Cubans players Pollock's Cuban Stars players Cuban emigrants to the United States

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