October 11, 1975: Boston’s Luis Tiant roughs up Reds with hitting, running, twirling, smoking in World Series opener

Fenway Park was back in the October sunshine. Winning the 1975 American League pennant was not just a good thing for Boston, for New England; it was a tonic for baseball fans across America. Since the Red Sox had last been in the World Series in 1967, new multisport facilities had proliferated throughout baseball, the artificial turf creating truer hops and higher temperatures for those on the field but giving baseball an antiseptic feel not all that flattering to the game.

With the Cincinnati Reds claiming their third pennant in six seasons, the 1975 World Series marked the fourth time that the fall classic was partially played on artificial turf since the introduction of the stuff at Houston’s Astrodome in 1966. In 1975 “home field” was determined on a rotation basis, so the three games on turf in Cincinnati were held under the lights – night games were another World Series innovation added since the last time the Red Sox glimpsed the postseason.

The feeling of old and new emanated not only from the ballparks but from the teams that called them home. Since moving into Riverfront Stadium in 1970 – the same year Sparky Anderson was named manager – the Reds had transformed into the Big Red Machine. The 1975 division title was the club’s fourth since ’70. It was not even close. Cincinnati won a franchise-record 108 times to claim the National League West Division by 20 games and then swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL Championship Series.

Yet the Reds were still looking for their first world championship since 1940. The Red Sox had to go back to World War I for their last championship, when Babe Ruth appeared on the mound and in the outfield in the World Series. He won two games as a starting pitcher and recorded the next to last out of the 1918 World Series, hauling in a fly ball in left field in the ninth inning of Game Six.

Boston had seen two World Series since 1918, both seven-game losses to the St. Louis Cardinals. There had also been great seasons with hard-luck finales: 1948, in a one-game playoff loss to the Cleveland Indians; 1949, losses on the final two days to the rival New York Yankees; and 1972, when a strike cut short the schedule and left the Red Sox an agonizing half-game behind the first-place Detroit Tigers.

But 1975 was different. Boston stayed in first place from June 29 until the season’s end. The Red Sox were infused with youth – superb rookies Fred Lynn and Jim Rice manned the outfield next to third-year, cannon-armed right fielder Dwight Evans. Hard-nosed Rick Burleson was already the leader of the infield at age 24, while 27-year-old Carlton Fisk – after an injury-marred 1974 – reestablished himself as one of the AL’s top catchers.

Was Fisk any match for Cincinnati’s Johnny Bench, the NL’s best backstop? How would Boston’s rotation, starting with Luis Tiant, deal with the potent bats of the Big Red Machine? Could the Red Sox make up for the absence of Rice, whose brilliant rookie season came to a premature end when his left hand was broken by a pitch in the final week of the season? Would Rico Petrocelli and the incomparable Carl Yastrzemski, the lone holdovers from the 1967 Impossible Dream pennant team, still shine eight Octobers later?

It would all play out on a stage that not only elevated the players’ games, but the game itself. For those watching the World Series for the first time in 1975, that fall classic forged a lasting appreciation for the rites of October. For those who had lost touch with the game, the 1975 World Series brought many fans back to baseball – and made them wonder why they’d ever drifted away.

With four days between the end of the League Championship Series and the start of the World Series, there was ample opportunity for hyperbole, bluster, and even gamesmanship. In the wake of Boston’s sweep of three-time defending World Series champion Oakland in the ALCS, Anderson wondered whether Tiant’s herky-jerky delivery was a balk.1 Nick Colosi, a National League umpire, called a balk on Tiant when the Reds got their first baserunner in the fourth inning. That was just one storyline for the start of a provocative World Series – and another outstanding start by a pitcher on an epic roll. 

A reclamation project when the Red Sox signed him after his release by the Atlanta Braves in May 1971, Tiant won an ERA title and Comeback Player of the Year in 1972, then turned in successive 20-win seasons. He stumbled in August 1975, missing two September starts to rest an aching back – and his ERA soared to 4.36 – before Red Sox manager Darrell Johnson sent him back to the mound against Detroit on September 11 to help New England regain its breath after Boston lost three games off its lead from September 4 to September 9.2

With the lead down to five games, El Tiante – living with his parents after an appeal was made to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to allow an extended visit – tossed a three-hitter to win, 3-1. For the month, Tiant allowed just that one run in three complete-game victories as the Red Sox won the AL East title by 4½ games. Boston’s reestablished ace beat Oakland postseason warhorse Ken Holtzman in Game One to set the tone for the ALCS.

A week later, Tiant matched 15-game winner Don Gullett zero for zero for six innings of the World Series opener, but he looked to be in trouble in the seventh. After a leadoff single by George Foster, Dave Concepción followed with a bloop to left field, but Minder of the Monster Yastrzemski – playing left field in Rice’s absence – made a diving catch.3 Foster, determined to get to second base, was gunned out stealing by Fisk.

Moments later, Ken Griffey doubled. For the second time in the game, Tiant intentionally walked César Gerónimo to face Gullett, and for the second time Tiant retired his opposing number as second baseman Denny Doyle grabbed Gullett’s line drive to end Cincinnati’s best threat.

Darrell Johnson didn’t think twice about his ace taking his turn at bat against Gullett to start the home seventh.4 Tiant, who had registered just one plate appearance in the three seasons since the DH rule took effect in the American League, had fanned his first time up against Gullett, in the second inning.

He walked his second time up, in the fifth inning, but the specter of Tiant at the plate with a runner on third in the sixth inning no doubt played a role in third-base coach Don Zimmer’s decision to have Lynn tag up on eighth-place hitter Cecil Cooper’s short fly ball to center field. Gerónimo, who tied for the National League lead in double plays with five in 1975, converted another when he nailed Lynn at the plate. It was the second time an inning had ended with Bench tagging a Red Sox runner at home. The first inning had concluded with Evans thrown out by shortstop Concepción trying to score from second on an infield single. 

Tiant, a .164 career hitter in nine pre-DH seasons, rapped a single to left amid roars of “Loo-ie, Loo-ie” at Fenway.5 The leadoff hit from the beloved El Tiante seemed to rouse the entire team. Tiant hustled to second on Evans’ bunt, as Gullett’s throw bounced off the sliding Cuban, allowing Evans to reach first. With Joe Garagiola spinning tales of the colorful Tiant throughout NBC’s Saturday afternoon World Series coverage, the Red Sox pitcher’s tour of the bases took the mantle of an epic journey.

Tiant took third on Doyle’s single, but he initially held up at third on Yastrzemski’s soft line drive to right, not sure whether Griffey would catch it. Tiant still came home with the first run of the day … well, he got credit for the run after he went back to touch the plate he missed the first time through. Concepción tried to alert cutoff man Tony Pérez about Tiant’s misstep,6 but like everything the Reds did in Game One, they were just a bit behind. A better read – or less entertaining baserunner – might have resulted in a two-run hit for Boston. Then again, Tiant’s last day on the bases had come in 1972. And the Red Sox would score again soon enough.

Clay Carroll replaced Gullett and walked Fisk to plate the second run. Anderson – “Captain Hook” as advertised – came right back out and replaced Carroll with lefty Will McEnaney. Petrocelli swung at a 1-and-0 pitch and singled home two runs. Burleson knocked home another teammate before Cooper hit a fly ball deep enough to score a run. The Fenway crowd cheered Tiant’s second at-bat of the inning, even as he fouled out to finally end the seventh. Five singles, a bunt, a walk, and a long fly equaled six runs, the biggest World Series inning since 1968. The Reds had allowed only seven runs in their three-game sweep of the Pirates in the NLCS.

“You open the door,” said Bench after the World Series opener, “and they score runs.”7 Put like that, it sounded simple. Figuring out Luis Tiant? That was difficult.

“In the National League,” said Rose, “we don’t face anyone who throws a spinning curve that takes two minutes to come down.”8

Tiant retired the last six Reds in order, the final touch on a five-hit shutout in the 34-year-old veteran’s first career World Series start.9 October had a new star, a Falstaff in stirrups with an assortment of baffling pitches and contortionist windups to distract Cincinnati batters and entrance NBC cameramen. The only thing Tiant was missing on the mound was his trademark cigar, but he chomped on that in the Red Sox locker room. This World Series would not be a Big Red Runaway. El Tiante and the opportunistic Red Sox lineup ensured that the 1975 Series would be unpredictable. It proved to be far more.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Luis Tiant, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS197510110.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1975/B10110BOS1975.htm

Notes

1 Eric Enders, 100 Years of the World Series, 1903-2004 (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2005), 187.

2 Mark Armour. “Luis Tiant,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/luis-tiant/. Accessed January 2025.

3 “1975 WS Gm 1: Yastrzemski Robs Concepcion of Hit,” YouTube video (MLB.com), 0:43, accessed January 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cyRE0tjmAE.

4 The designated hitter, which had been implemented in AL regular-season play in 1973, was not used in the World Series until 1976.

5 “WS1975Gm1: Tiant Starts Six-Run Sox Rally in the 7th,” YouTube video (MLB.com), 2:23, accessed January 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9_IGZGOvFo.

6 Peter Gammons, “El Tiante Elegante, Red Machine Pffft … 6-0: Sox Rack 3 Pitchers with Six-Run Seventh,” Boston Globe, October 12, 1975: 53, available at https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/1975/10/12/tiante-leads-red-sox-past-reds/vZOsozFaEKlnzHUll4exzI/story.html.

7 Ron Fimrite, “Reaching Out for the Series,” Sports Illustrated, October 20, 1975, https://vault.si.com/vault/1975/10/20/reaching-out-for-the-series.

8 Gammons, “El Tiante Elegante, Red Machine Pffft … 6-0.”

9 “1975 WS Gm 1: Tiant Goes Distance for 6-0 Shutout,” YouTube video (MLB.com), 1:01, accessed January 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFn0Jv-IHw4.