This week, I’m going to feature another player’s card from the late sixties who passed away. At the risk of this column turning into a obit column, I couldn’t resist.
I had looked up Luis Tiant’s stats when he passed away last week. I immediately was drawn to his numbers in 1968. Then Pastor Rich sent me a photo of his 1968 card so I knew I had to do it.
Tiant had been a solid hurler for the Cleveland Indians for four years but in 1968, he had a breakout season with a 21-9 record. He led the AL with a 1.60 ERA while pacing the league with nine shutouts. With 19 complete games, he maintained a 5.3 hits per 9 innings mark.
Tiant got a few votes for AL MVP but none for the AL Cy Young award. That was the year Denny McLain went 31-6 with 28 complete games and a 1.96 ERA who won it unanimously.
| Split | W | L | W-L% | ERA | G | GS | CG | SHO | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 Totals | 21 | 9 | .700 | 1.60 | 34 | 32 | 19 | 9 | 258.1 | 152 | 53 | 46 | 16 | 73 | 264 |
Tiant Trivia
What’s the most important thing on Tiant’s card? Well, it’s his grade and received a well-deserved A&C thanks to his 1.60 ERA. Because of his 264 strikeouts in 258 1/3 innings, he also has an ‘XY’ strikeout rating which believe it or not, was very coveted at one time.
Generally speaking, Tiant was a control pitcher and in 1968, his 73 walks in 258 1/3 innings was good enough to earn a Z rating.
There were a couple things about his hitting card that drew my attention. First, he had eleven sacrifices in 1968 and this card bears this out. Tiant’s card only has four 13s (ironically on good dice rolls, 25, 31, 51 and 35). He also has 13 fly out numbers (30-32) which tend to be successful bunt attempts on the sacrifice boards.
And second is something I have never seen before. Tiant’s 1968 card has two 31s and the ‘second’ one is on 53. The more I think about it, I wonder if it is a misprint and should be a ’13’.
After 1968, Luis Tiant lost a bit of his control for a couple years and lost 20 games for Cleveland in 1969. He was then traded to Boston and overall had a very solid 19-year career winning at least 20 games in 1968, 1973, 1974 and 1976.
RIP Luis Tiant
Hello…..enjoy your column……can you please explain what are “good dice rolls”?
The probability of every dice roll is 1 / 36……whether you roll a 55, 23, 42, etc….
Why are some rolls good?
Hi Anthony, that sounds like a great topic for an article.
In short, APBA is very consistent about which numbers are the best. Double number dice rolls (like 66 or 11) are always the best. A lot of numbers ending in’5′ are good with the obvious exception of ’65’ can be good. And for some reason, ’31’ and ’51’ have been deemed possible onbase numbers as well.
I may work up an article.
thanks, Tom