Luis Tiant is “The Man.” HALL OF FAME PITCHER JIM PALMER AFTER EACH OF THE FIRST TWO SEASONS HE PITCHED FOR the Mexico City Tigers, Luis Tiant returned home to Cuba for the off-season. He had established himself as a rising star during his second year, in 1960, going 17–7 and leading the Tigers to the Mexican League championship. That summer at a coed softball game he also met Maria del Refugio Navarro, a young beauty who worked for the Social Security office and was playing left field that night, the start of a traditional yearlong courtship that would lead to their marriage. During the winter of 1960–61, as young Tony Perez prepared to spend his first season on a Reds farm team in upstate New York, Luis pitched in the Cuban League. One of the oldest and most storied baseball organizations in the Western Hemisphere, the Cuban League had developed dozens of players who went on to play in either the majors or the Negro Leagues. Since 1900, the Cuban League had also been baseball’s only fully integrated league, where white American players were regularly sent by their major-league owners for seasoning against top competition from around the Caribbean.
