Luis Tiant lived the life you make movies about, and Jonathan Hock has done just that. A 20 year old Tiant left Cuba on a trip scheduled to last a month. 46 yrs. later he would make it back to the island. In between, he would become a U.S. citizen, raise a family, win 229 games in the major leagues and see Fidel Castro make an exception to allow his parents, decades later, to join him in the USA. "The Lost Son of Havana", written and directed by Hock, follows the 67 yr. old Tiant as he returns to his homeland to become reconciled to having led the life his father, a legendary pitcher in Cuba, could never had. "It is a melancholy story about coming to terms with 46 lost years," Hock said.
The film, which debuted last month at the Tribeca Film Festival,will be shown on ESPN in August.
"Wanting to share his dream with his father and not being able to for so long, and then being able to, that is the core of the emotion of the story, I think," Hock said.
"The Cuban people have this gift of expression to be able to fully be present in their sadness and their joy at the same time, and it makes for very powerful scenes."
While there are plenty of clips of Tiant pitching, Hock was not trying to make a sports movie.
"I think as the saga of a Cuban-American family, it tells such a wonderful story," he said.
"He had to go to Cuba to reclaim his freedom and he got it, and you have to be happy for that."
The above is an article that appeared in USA Today yesterday and since many of you are old-timers, I thought it might be something it might interest some of you.

Thanks Jose... I'll be looking for it.

Remember him well. He was a favorite of mine.

Thanks for sharing this with us Jose. Tiant was a very colorful player.
Go to the address below for a complete look at his stats.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tiantlu01.shtml

Jimi: Thanks for pointing to his stats. Now they look more amazing than what I thought they were. His 19 seasons' ERA was 3.30 with a WHIP of 1.199. His '68, '73, and '74 seasons numbers are great. In CDM points, he would have had 732, 668, and 707 points respectively. In '68 he had 258.3 inn. with 264 Ks; in '74 he pitched 311 inn.; in '73 he pitched 272 inn. 20 game winner all 3 of those seasons.

Those were some stats.I always remembered his windup turning to 2nd base then here comes the pitch

I give you Tiant's stats and you come back with how he would of done in some other league that some of us no longer relate too.

So, I went ahead and totaled out Tiant's '68, '73, and '74 seasons using the OGBL scoring. Here's how he would of fared in OGBL land. Note, no Quality Starts were listed so I figured in 22, 21, and 23 for each season.

1968 - 714.33 points
1973 - 645.00 points
1974 - 691.33 points

To compare, last seasons top SP's using the OGBL scoring system were,
Sabathia - 649.00 points
Lincecum - 615.00 points
Halladay - 599.00 points