The 1970s Red Sox pitcher was 83

“He hardly looked like baseball royalty,” wrote Globe columnist Harold Kaese. “Squat, thick-chested, short-armed. That was one of the princes of pitching?”

Mr. Tiant's chiropractic movement — “twisting and turning on the mound like a figure in a Bavarian bell tower,” noted New Yorker writer Roger Angell — stunned hitters who had no idea when or where the ball was coming toward them would.

“He doesn’t even look at you when he throws the ball,” said former Yankees catcher Thurman Munson.

Mr. Tiant's unpredictability enhanced his two greatest qualities – his resilience and his reliability in must-win competitions. “If a man put a gun to my head and said, 'I'm going to pull the trigger if you lose this game,' I would want Luis Tiant to call that game,” said former Sox manager Darrell Johnson.

Luis Clemente Tiant Vega was born in Marianao in 1940 and named after his father, a legendary left-hander for the New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues in the 1930s and '40s. While he showed early promise on the mound, Mr. Tiant was released by the Havana Sugar Kings, a minor league affiliate of the last-place Senators, whose representative suggested he become a fruit salesman.

Mr. Tiant, who compiled a 229-172 record in 573 major league appearances and 187 complete games and was a three-time All-Star, enjoyed his best years after two other clubs released him. The Indians, who had signed him out of the Mexican League in 1961, traded him to Minnesota in 1969 after he struggled through a 9-20 season, his only losing record in six seasons in Cleveland.

When the Twins released an injured Mr. Tiant after one season, Boston brought him in to fill a hole in the rotation and stuck with him after Mr. Tiant went 1-7 in 1971. “I never gave up,” he said. “I kept telling myself that as long as I could get the ball to home plate, I would stay in baseball.”

Mr. Tiant's renaissance began in 1972, when he won 15 games, 11 of them after early August, and kept his teammates in contention until the final weekend of the season.

Mr. Tiant, who sported a desperado mustache and smoked cigars in the clubhouse's shower and hot tub, was a popular teammate with a knack for amusing his colleagues, whom he gave nicknames like “Polaco” (Carl Yastrzemski) and “Frankenstein.” (Carlton gave Fisk) and “Pinocchio” (Rico Petrocelli). “Luis knew exactly when to turn a bus ride into something out of 'Saturday Night Live,'” said former Sox right fielder Dwight Evans.

But on the mound, Mr. Tiant was a relentless and captivating competitor, whose virtuosic performances fellow Sox pitcher Bill Lee likened to a symphony: “Hard at the beginning, a little sweet in the middle, slow, and then the big explosion at the end.” “ .”

Mr. Tiant was at his most dominant and dramatic during the 1975 pennant run, when he delivered a half-dozen masterpieces late in the season after a two-week layoff with a bad back. “You can talk about anyone else you want on this team, but Tiant is the man,” said former Baltimore star Jim Palmer.

After a no-hitter in the eighth inning of a 3-1 decision over Detroit, Mr. Tiant shut out Baltimore (amid shouts of “LOO-ie, LOO-ie”) and Cleveland, and held Oakland to an unearned run in a 7-1 Victory in the start of the league championship series. “He's the Fred Astaire of baseball, dancing his way to victory,” explained A's slugger Reggie Jackson. “He got the crowd into an uproar.”

After confusing Cincinnati in Game 1 of the series, Mr. Tiant beat the Reds again on the road in Game 4. “We don’t have anyone like that in the National League,” remarked Reds captain Pete Rose. “Nobody throwing those high-spinning curveballs that take two minutes to come down.”

Although Mr. Tiant won 21 games for a third-place club in 1976 and another 25 games in the two seasons that followed, including a shutout against Toronto that secured Boston a playoff title against New York in 1978, management only offered him a one-year contract for 1979, when he was 38 years old. “They never took me seriously in their negotiations,” Mr. Tiant said. “They treated me like an old fool, but I was smart with their bool cheat.”

So Mr. Tiant joined the Yankees as a free agent and won 13 games the next year. “When they let Luis Tiant go to New York, they ripped our hearts and souls out,” Yastrzemski said.

Mr. Tiant played two years in the Bronx before finishing his career with the Pirates and Angels. “It's always nice to have someone uglier than you in the club,” joked Fred Lynn, a teammate from California who played with Mr. Tiant in Boston. Mr. Tiant retired in 1982 after giving Boston its last win. After serving as a Yankees scout and minor league coach for the Dodgers and White Sox, Mr. Tiant coached at Savannah College of Art and Design for four years.

In 2001, he joined the Red Sox as a pitching coach for their Lowell affiliate and as a special assignment consultant. “When I’m in Boston, I always feel at home,” Mr. Tiant said. “I’m almost crying, I feel so good.”

When he saw both parents for the first time since 1961 in 1975, two years after the Cuban Revolution, he shed serious tears. After a letter from US Senator Edward Brooke was personally delivered to Prime Minister Fidel Castro by his colleague George McGovern, Mr Tiant's parents were allowed to visit their son indefinitely. “I never thought I would see them again, and I think they feel the same way,” Mr. Tiant said. “But it happened.”

His parents arrived in August, when the Sox were well ahead in the division race. His father, wearing a Boston cap, threw out the first pitch before a game with the Angels and then watched his son take the mound.

But even after reuniting with his parents, the pull of his homeland remained strong and, after decades of diplomatic disputes, Mr Tiant returned to the island for the first time in 2007. “I have to go to Cuba before I die,” said Tiant, whose emotional return was chronicled in the documentary “The Lost Son of Havana.” “This will complete my life.”

However, his true home has long been Boston. “This is my second country,” said Mr. Tiant, whose El Tiante stand on Yawkey Way sold Cuban sandwiches. “The people here have been great to me and good to my family. No matter where I go, and I’ve been a lot of places, there’s no better place for me.”

Mr. Tiant is survived by his wife Maria and children Luis, Isabel and Daniel.