Red Sox News & Links: RIP El Tiante

Photo by Dan Goshtigian/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesA signed 8X10 picture of Luis Tiant was the first autograph I ever owned. I didn’t even meet the man in-person (he swung through the restaurant where my dad worked one day) and I never even saw him play, but I cherished that picture and the foundational era of Red Sox baseball it represented. I mention this only because I suspect that there are more Luis Tiant autographs scattered around New England than autographs of any other former Boston athlete — that’s how much El Tiante ingratiated himself into the community. RIP to a Sox legend. (John Powers, Boston Globe)

In fact, Tiant may have been “the hippest, coolest cat ever to wear a…