Luis Tiant, the charismatic Cuban with a horseshoe mustache and mesmerizing windup who pitched the Red Sox to the brink of a World Series championship and pitched himself to the doorstep of the baseball Hall of Fame,

For a couple of weeks at almost every spring training this century, Tiant and I lived in the same Florida hotel, and he became a friend of the family.

Luis Tiant, whose twisting windup helped him win 229 games in a 19-year major league career, has died. He was 83.