I was lucky to meet Luis Tiant many times, because he was so easy to meet if you were around the Red Sox. He was not shy of the public, and was one of most outgoing and friendly people I’ve met in professional baseball.
The first time I met him was when I took a trip down to Fort Myers in either spring 2003 or 2004. I was working on 50 Greatest Yankees Games and had spent a few weeks in Tampa, but I wanted to try to interview some Red Sox. The Red Sox refused to credential me (“call us back when you write a book about the Red Sox”) but one of the Boston beat writers had given me a tip. At the time, the Red Sox played their spring training games in City of Palms Park, and many of the coaches and staff would stay in a small hotel that was right down the street.
So I went to Fort Myers hoping to maybe talk my way in (security at a lot of spring training parks in those days was very lax), but if I couldn’t, I figured I would check out this hotel and see if anyone would talk to me there.
I struck out getting anyone at the park that day, but as evening fell I walked over the hotel, and sitting on a bench right in front of the place is Luis Tiant. He’s wearing a nice guayabera and holding a long, unlit cigar. I stop to chat with another writer on the sidewalk (possibly Alex Speier? or maybe Pete Abraham) and when I look up, El Tiante is waving me over.
So I sat down on the bench and we talked baseball. At the time I didn’t have questions prepared for him, and it didn’t feel like I should whip out my tape recorder (yeah, I was using a handheld cassette recorder, that’s how long ago this was). He was trying to enjoy a beautiful Florida evening. I assumed at some point he would light the cigar.
I don’t remember what we talked about because we were basically shooting the breeze. I told him he was one of my dad’s favorite players, and I had watched him play with the Yankees when I was a kid. With his wild windup, he was probably the first pitcher I watched who really intrigued me about what exactly pitchers did. He would run the cigar under his nose, inhale deeply, and then tell some long-ish story. I would mention something else, and then he would do it again.
Eventually I asked him if he was not lighting the cigar because of me and he said, no, he’d promised his wife he wouldn’t smoke. So he would just sit out there enjoying the scent of a fine cigar without actually smoking it.
I eventually decided I had taken up enough of his time and said good night and drove back to Tampa.
The next year I was working on the 50 Greatest Red Sox Games book, that I co-wrote with Bill Nowlin. (When the Red Sox told me they wouldn’t credential me, I reminded them they’d told me to call back when I was working on a Red Sox book… and they relented.) I spent most of the day at the park chasing down comments from guys like Johnny Damon and Jason Varitek.
So the funny part is that by the time I got around to sitting down to interview Luis Tiant, we were back on that bench in front of the hotel. This time the tape recorder was on, and the legendary Johnny Pesky was also hanging around, but it didn’t really feel any different than the year before. I’d say a little something, and off El Tiante would go with a long, deep thought.
Here’s a transcript of that conversation:
CT: So let’s talk about the 1975 World Series. How did you get ready for a game like that?
Luis Tiant: Scouting is overrated. I never listened to the scouts. I think that’s overrated. You have to go with what you got, what you came with and what got you here, first. Whatever is helpful from here and there, well, that’s okay, it can help you a little bit. The key is don’t make a mistake. I know everybody, I know how to pitch guys. I even knew the Cincinnati Reds. I’m not going to change my style to pitch in the World Series because it’s the Cincinnati Reds. I pitch the same way with everybody, with everything. It can be Cincinnati, it can be Kansas City, it can be the worst team in baseball. I’m going to go there and I’m going to try to beat you if you give me a chance. That’s all I do and all I’ve been doing all my life. The scouting thing is overrated. You listen to them talk in the meeting before you’re going to play the team, they say, this guy can hit the fastball, he’s a good fastball hitter, don’t let him beat you. Well, so what? If you are a fastball pitcher, what are you going to throw, the breaking ball? Then you get behind, and then you have to throw the fastball, and then they are going to hurt you!
The young pitchers are mostly fastball pitchers, they don’t have agreat breaking ball. And right away they are going to tell the kid, he’s a good fastball hitter, don’t let him beat you, well, what are you doing to do? You go onto the mound and you’re already all messed up before you even face the guy. You say, hey, I’m a fastball pitcher, and now what am I going to do. Am I going to throw a breaking ball, and get behind, and end up making him a better hitter? That’s why I never believed it. I believed in myself, and I trusted myself. I believe in and trust what got me here to the big leagues. Hard work, a lot of persistence, and that’s how I came into the big leagues. I said that’s what I want to be and that’s how I did it. If I listened to people, and they are saying to me, you don’t do something good, or what you do, don’t work, you better change it, well, you’re not going to be around too long, I guarantee you that. But, if you are doing good, why change? Why fix something that doesn’t break? Without breaking, then leave it alone.
That’s what happened with a lot of guys. I learn it every year. Whether I win 20 games this year, every year I come back and I try to do something different with the ball. Making the ball move the other way, because the hitters learn you. They learned me, and they learn the situation and how you pitch, you know what, like here, he threw me a 3-2 breaking ball, so here I’m going to sit down on a breaking ball. So maybe I might throw a change up, I might throw a fastball, but that’s the problem with a lot of pitchers. They might do the same thing over and over.
CT: But you had the ability to throw a lot of different pitches.
LT: Yes. But the thing is you don’t change your pitches. You get people out with them, you keep them, but if the good hitters, if they are going to hit you, you learn a little bit better the ball moves in different ways, instead of just in, move it out too, and then you have both sides, because the hitters are learning–the GOOD hitters, they will.
CT: And it’s really only the good hitters you worry about, not the mediocre guys?
LT: No. The good hitter, if you want to get him out, you better learn every year. Because they are learning you. And the good baserunners, when they get on first base, the guy will learn your motion, your delivery. And he’s going to steal if you don’t make any change. They got you. Everything is common sense.
At the beginning, it’s all common sense. That’s how I learned to pitch. I don’t want to change my way of pitching because these guys can hit the ball five hundred feet or ten thousand miles. Who cares? They have to have a weakness. One spot, somewhere in their swing, they have to have a weak spot, where you can get them out. I don’t see nobody who can hit every pitch. No way. I haven’t seen one yet. Is there one? I want to see it. I want somebody to tell me, this is the guy you are looking for. I want to see him. I say no way. You have to be smart enough to know.
CT: Even Ted Williams had his weak spots…
LT: Oh yeah, oh yeah. You have to be smart enough, and to have the control good enough, to throw the ball close to where you want. And it’s like I tell the young kids, you don’t have to be perfect, and throw the ball here all the time (gestures to a spot in the air), you can’t do that. Nobody is going to do that.
So much emphasis on so many things in baseball, that now they come out and they want to change baseball. All those guys want to change baseball. They don’t know nothing about baseball! It’s a shame what they do, but there’s nothing you can do about it. They don’t want to listen to the old guys because we don’t know anything, and we played better than them, and we played longer than them, and we do more things than they do. Most of them. Well, there are some good guys now, like Schilling, Clemens, Pedro. They’re good. They were good here and they would have been good twenty years ago and fifty years ago.
The majority are not. They don’t know how to pitch. Most of them, they think that they’re God. That’s a change. You need to have a little respect for the oldest guys, the guys who (built? set?) the game for you, who make it so you making the money you are making. You have to have a little respect for them. Some guys, they don’t care about you. And that’s okay.
The things is that when you are teaching some of the young guys, they think they know everything. I pitched for 25 years and I don’t know everything. If I say I do, I’m lying to you. Because every day you learn something. Every day you learn something. But there are a lot of guys who think they know everything and they don’t know how to get one guy out. They don’t what is inside, they don’t know what is outside. It’s amazing.
I see some guys in the minor leagues, and that’s the way it is today. I’m not pointing the finger at anybody. I mind my own business. I do what I have to do, I do what I get paid to do, and they think I cannot do my job? They should be able to tell me, what you do? I don’t like it. You have to change, you have to do this and that, fine. But I don’t go and stepping on anybody’s foot, I don’t want to step anybody’s feet, I don’t care. Whatever you guys want to do, that’s up to you. I want to be happy and live my own life, I want to do what I have to do. I don’t care about nobody else, that’s their business, they do their own thing, and if they don’t want to be my friend, fine. I don’t have to make you be my friend. Or make like you like me. I don’t like everybody, and everybody doesn’t have to like me.
Johnny Pesky: (eavesdropping) I like you!
LT: I want to live my life. And what everybody else do, that’s fine.
CT: Let’s talk a little more about the old days. What was Fenway park like in 1975?
LT: It was good. It was a good stadium, it gave you a good feeling, especially when the people are on your side, when they are pulling for you, and chanting your name. It makes you feel good and it makes you work harder, you don’t want to let them down. I have to do my thing and push myself to the end. It makes you do better it makes you be a better person and a better pitcher, and a better spokesperson.
I love the game, and I know my life has been baseball. it was my dream, I fulfilled my dream, not too many people can say that without lying. Thanks to God for giving me the ability and the health. I have no complaints about the game. These people now, the new owners, they treat me good, they respect me, more than anything, they pay me, they treat me good. I don’t care about the other people, the manager, the coaches, if somebody don’t like me, I don’t care, so be it. That’s their problem. You know who matters if they like me? Lucchino and Henry. That’s my buddy. Lucchino is my boss. They respect me and that’s what I care about.
Pesky: Name me one guy who don’t like you. (joking) Besides me!
LT: (laughs) That’s the thing about it. I never really cared too much about it.
CT: Why don’t you tell me who you like?
LT: I like everybody.
CT: No, I mean of these pitchers, on the mound.
Pesky: He don’t like nobody when they’re on the mound.
LT: Wells. I like Wells. Wells is pretty good. I think Wells is good, I see in him a lot like myself, he’s a tough kid, he knows how to pitch. [I think he means David Wells.] Schilling, forget it, you saw what he did last year. Not too many guys have the heart that he’s got. Pedro, he’s not here now, but… oh and the guys here, now, what’s his name, Wakefield, he’s good. He goes out there with whatever he’s got and he’s going to get you out. You can’t ask for any more than that.
That’s the way I look at it. You got to give 110 percent every time you go out. And whether you win or lose, well, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s part of the game. You want to win every game, but sometimes it doesn’t work that way. The guys don’t score for you, or maybe somebody makes a mistake, and you lose the game even though you’re pitching a good game. Every day that happens. But you have to keep working, you have to go over there and give your best, and make your teammates respect you.
Your teammates are going to respect you for what you do on the mound. You can joke all you want outside you can be the clown, but when you go on the mound, if you are chicken? Your teammates won’t like you, I guarantee you. If somebody hits one of your players, and you don’t retalitiate and hit one of them, your guys won’t want to play for you. I guarantee you that. if I were a regular player, I’d be mad, too. You mean I’m going to work for you, and you’re not going to defend me? Uh uh. You better go over there and be knocking somebody down or hitting somebody. And that’s the way it is. You have to make people respect you. And you do that, you got them on your back. Nobody is going to say anything bad about you, and every time they are going to put the uniform behind you, they are going to play hard, because you know what? they say we have to protect him, we have to do whatever we have to do to win the game for him. And that’s how you play the game.
CT: That’s certainly how the guys felt about you in 1975.
LT: Because like I said, you work hard, and they know you work hard, every time you get the ball you got the guts to survive and try to beat somebody. Even if sometimes it doesn’t work that way, the believe you tried, and they are going to respect you. They are going to want to play behind you, and they are going to do anything to make you win that game. That’s the way it has to be. Instead of them opening their mouths and talking baloney. Talk is cheap. You can talk all you want. But you know if you are not doing your job. Look, I go out there and break my heart and give 120%, and then there’s another guy who doesn’t want to play, you think they are going to respect him? No way. As a matter of fact, I might jump all over him. He doesn’t want to play, he doesn’t want to run? I’ll be right on him. But that’s what some of the guys do, and what some of the guys got to do more. Some guys don’t want to say anything, no no no, you say, we’re teammates. Eight guys work hard, the ninth guy, he better work hard. And then we’re going to win. We’re here to win not to lose. As long as you do that, no matter how you come out, you get the respect of the guys.
CT: That sounds a lot like last year’s team. (The Red Sox had just won the World Series in 2004.)
LT: Uh huh, uh huh, that’s right. To me, if you respect people and you behave and you play hard, you’re not going to have no problems anywhere you go. The guys will say “he’s a good person”… and sometimes you don’t even have to be a good person, if you go over there and play hard, people will still respect you. To me I really don’t care who like me or not, that’s why we say teammates, teammates I don’t mean to much to me. I get paid to do my job, you get paid to do your job, and the other guy he gets paid to do his job. When we go over there and we put the uniform on, we better go play. And then you don’t have to care about what I do, and I don’t care about what you do, but we go over there and we going to try to beat somebody. And if you do that, you’re going to have a good team. These guys do that. They go and play. That’s all you can say and you are going to have a good team. You know what? They are going to come to a point like they did last year, where everybody comes together. We don’t know how, or where, but it happens.
CT: So who do you think was the leader of the ’75 team?
LT: You don’t name a captain. Like me, I don’t want to be a captain, all that belongs in the army. You don’t need a captain. Well, like Varitek got named captain, well, that’s okay, I don’t have no problem with that. But to be a captain, you better do everything right. Don’t come in here and be joking around and now you’re telling me what to do. Varitek, he’s an example. He does what he has to do. He goes over there and works hard. He can be a captain. But to me, I don’t have to be looking at him to play. I know what to do, I will go and do my job. He’s not going to say to me “get in there and do your job.” You know? (laughs) If you have the talent and the ability to do what you are going to do, then I don’t care who is the captain, or the general, or the president.
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Thank you for everything, Luis Tiant Jr., and for being such a generous soul.
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