Son of Havana

The improbable story of Luis Tianta living link to the earliest days of Fidel Castro's regime, a Boston Red Sox legend, and the most qualified 20th Century pitcher not yet enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame Luis Tiant is one of the most charismatic and accomplished players in the history of the Boston Red Sox and all of Major League Baseballa cigar-chomping maestro who was the heart and soul of Boston's title-contending teams in the 1970s. In his white polyester uniform, with a barrel-chested physique and a Fu Manchu mustache, Tiant may not have looked like the lean, sculpted aces he usually faced off against, but nobody was a tougher competitor on the diamond, and few were as successful. There may be no more qualified 20th-century pitcher not yet enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His big-league dreams came at a steep priceracism in the Deep South and the Boston suburbs, and nearly fifteen years separated from a family held...