Luis Tiant Dies at Age 83.

[danimalia]

As a Giants fan, I was familiar with the Spahn-Marichal game. Unbelievable. I usually don't have any guilt about leaving a ballgame earlier if it's out of hand, or goes into extra innings. But an extra innings game with both starters still in the game seems to compelling to walk away from!

I think there needs to be a happy medium when it comes to pitch counts and workloads. On the one hand, I love watching someone like Paul Skenes, because guys who are consistently into triple digits are exciting as hell. But it's also kind of horrifying. Guys are just throwing harder than ever, the extreme emphasis on spin rates surely isn't helping. We're never going back to the old days of 300+ innings being the norm, or even 250. But I also enjoyed it a bit more when starters had more of an influence on the game, and the goal was to, at the very least, hand off the game to your high leverage relievers. It added an extra level of strategy for pitchers who couldn't just let it fly pitch after pitch. Even if it was closer to the way it was around 15-20 years ago would be a big improvement, IMO.

My understanding is MLB is also kind of frustrated with the diminishing role of starters and looking for solutions, so who knows....

 

[newbroom]

My memories of Fenway Park are from 3 games that I recall. Not too much detail. I feel like I was there to see Ted once. I was very young and my dad was with me. He was a lifelong Red Sox fan. We lived in NH about 60 miles from Boston. All New Englanders were Red Sox fans, pretty much.
I remember Al Smith golfing a low inside pitch JUST clearing the Green Monster, as I sat in the upper deck in left field. They were playing the White Sox that day.
I remember seeing remember seeing Rod Carew play, and also come out of the visitor's dugout along with a few other players, hopping made and justifiably so, because some asshole had thrown a pack of firecrackers into the dugout from the stands somehow. There was smoke galore and lots of bang bang bang. It was to me, an embarrassment.
I saw a skinny black left hander one hit or no hit the Yankees one game. I don't remember much else or even his name. He had a short career but always handled the Yankees. It seemed unlikely. He was so skinny.

I went to an opening day game one year with my Uncle Pete who was an incredible athlete whom I idolized. The marathon was also being run that day and it went right past the entrance to Fenway park. The crowd going in was huge and we still had no tickets. My Uncle, undaunted, dragged myself and a friend or was it one of my 5 brothers? along toward the head of the line. He cut through the masses like butter, bumping gently but forcefully anyone in the way, out of it. I was kind of confused as to how I felt about being brought along for this trip which seemed like swimming upstream in a heavy current. I think I remember that at some point, Uncle Pete saw an opportunity to buy a scalper's offerings and we got in to the sold out stadium. I don't remember the game itself! The park is incredible. Fenway is called a jewel of a baseball park for good reason.

 

[litup]

My understanding is MLB is also kind of frustrated with the diminishing role of starters and looking for solutions, so who knows....

It will be fascinating to watch how they address the issue because I don't think they'll be able to mandate wholesale changes. For example, they wouldn't be able to mandate that every starter must pitch 5 innings or more because there will be times when the pitcher gets injured or just gets hit so hard that their pitch count would be beyond reasonable by then.

If they try to guide teams into relying on starters more by restricting roster sizes or something, the player's union would balk at that (pun intended).

I think they'll have to figure out a way to incentivize change without demanding it. Something like an extra pick between the 1st and 2nd round of the draft if you have five starters that averaged 160-175 innings. Or maybe they bump up the amount received from revenue sharing if a pitcher goes 200+ innings (or decrease the contribution to revenue sharing for applicable teams).

 

[danimalia]

Yeah, the solutions I'd initially seemed like they might be unenforceable, or possibly dangerous in forcing pitchers to go further than is healthy for that particular start... That said, MLB has some real creative people working for them, and I think the pitch clock (for pace of play), the larger bases (to increase base stealing), and banning the shift (to encourage more balls in play ending up in hits, and possibly skew the incentive to swing for the moon on every pitch) have all been pretty successful. Whatever they do, I hope it works, and incentives might be a good way to start.

 

[craiginthecorn]

It'll happen when you get out of the corn. Seriously, I remember that game because I read about it in the newspapers at the time, and it made the news on TV. Heckuva game.

There's been several games that surpassed that one, innings wise by one pitcher. Notice how long ago some of them were. Pitchers threw a lot of innings in the dead ball era, and as you know, conditions were very different then. But, the Warren Spahn- Juan Marichal game was in the 1960s.

https://jay.typepad.com/william_jay/2005/06/most_innings_pi.html

Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings) - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)

A Game for the Ages | Baseball Hall of Fame - https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/short-stops/a-game-for-the-ages

Marichal, Spahn and the greatest game ever pitched - https://www.mlb.com/news/juan-marichal-warren-spahn-greatest-game-ever-pitched

I was at an antique mall in Door County, Wisconsin this afternoon and spotted this pin from the day celebrating his retirement, just two months after the game vs Tiant.

 

[Puff nstuff]

And now we've lost Fernando Valenzuela, too!

 

[Merton]

Tiant was much loved in Boston, both during and long after his retirement. His unusual wind up, in which he literally turned his back on the batter was legendary. I also remember a friend who was a long time Red sox staff member telling me the Tiant was the among the very kindest and friendly members of the Sox team, even when he did not have to be. RIP El Tiante!. As I get older...too young to have gone...

 

[JimInks]

And now we've lost Fernando Valenzuela, too!

I saw that, and meant to post a thread about it here. Sure wish I did.

 

[litup]

Just thought I'd share a picture of my Luis Tiant rookie card. I've been collecting rookie cards of Red Sox greats through the years and this is one of them.