HARTFORD, Conn. — There is only one way to begin an appreciation of Luis Tiant, and that’s with the striking of a match.

Tiant, El Tiante, who died at 83 on Tuesday, loved his cigars, eventually lent his name to a brand, and if he would have been allowed he would probably have had one on the mound. It would have looked right, too, and he would somehow have incorporated the smoke to his advantage.

There was only one Luis Tiant, one of the best pitchers of his, or any generation, and those of us old enough to remember any part of his 19-year career, are lucky to have had him in ours.

He believed in the value of taking 45 or so minutes to slow down and contemplate the day ahead, or the day just finished, with a fine cigar. I pick my spots, but occasionally like to channel my inner old-time newspaper guy, light up and line up puffs to paragraphs. This Kristoff, like a Tiant start, will have to go the distance. So with the first few puffs, we’ll contemplate a certain connection to our neck of the woods.

In 1975, Tiant was to start Game 1 of the 1975 World Series at Fenway Park. His father, Luis Sr., “Lefty” Tiant, was allowed by the Castro regime to leave Cuba to see his son pitch for the first time. They had been unable to see each other for 17 years.

Johnny Taylor, the legendary Hartford pitcher, had been the elder Tiant’s teammate 40 years earlier with the Negro Leagues’ New York Cubans, traveled to Boston for a reunion. Both had been denied the chance to pitch in the American or National leagues because of their race. The younger Tiant had to face a different hardship, force to choose between his home, his family, and a major league career. At this pinnacle he pitched a shutout against Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine.

That was a big game, probably the biggest of his life, but then every game Tiant pitched for the Red Sox between 1972 and ’78 felt like a big game, because there was no one like him. He’d wheel around, look skyward, then wheel back and fire and, despite all this added motion, could put the ball where he wanted it, the hitter never knowing the angle, the trajectory or velocity with which it might be delivered. “The only person who doesn’t love watching Luis Tiant pitch is the batter who has to face him,” Joe Garagiola once said.

This was an era when great pitchers were great performers. They were actors, illusionists and entertainers, and with certain ones, if you had tickets to a game later in the season, you followed the box scores in hopes it might be their turn when the day arrived. Would Nolan Ryan pitch a no-hitter on that day? Would Tom Seaver or Ron Guidry challenge a strikeout record? Would Wilbur Wood’s knuckler flutter and make the batters fall down when they swing and missed?

You wanted to see Luis Tiant at least once, and even if you rooted for the other team you wanted to see him on top of his game. I had that good fortune, after Tiant moved to the Yankees and became a fan favorite in New York, doing commercials for hot dogs. (It’s great to be with a wiener!”). He pitched against the Red Sox on a Saturday afternoon and lost, 3-2, going the distance, losing on a ninth-inning home run by his old pal, Carl Yastrzemski, just inside the foul pole.

By then, Tiant needed every trick in his Santa-sized bag to get hitters out. But there is lots more to this cigar, and this story, than the bearded, roly-poly purveyor of deception.

Tiant was young and fit and threw smoke when he first came up with Cleveland in 1964. In his debut, at the original Yankee Stadium, he blew away the Yankees, a four-hitter with 11 strikeouts. He became one of the best pitchers in the game in the 1960s, a decade loaded with greats. In ’68, the year Bob Gibson and Denny McLain had their seasons for the ages, Tiant was right with them, 21-9 with a 1.60 ERA across 253 innings.

Sometimes, a cigar flames out and has to be re-lit. Sometimes, a pitcher flames out and has to reinvent himself. Tiant lost 20 the next season, and bounced to Minnesota and then Boston, where he went 1-7 in 1971.

Then he started smoking again as a finesse pitcher, with the array of deliveries and angles that made him an even bigger star. He was chunkier now, and the horseshoe mustache and beard were part of the mystique. You didn’t need a radar gun or a spin rate to measure greatness; Luis Tiant wasn’t a scientist, he was an artist, every start a fresh canvas. He pitched to a 1.91 ERA in 1972, and won 20 games in 1973, ’74 and ’76.

“Luis had the kind of unforgettable presence that made you feel like you were part of his world,” Red Sox principal owner John Henry said in a statement released by the team. “He was a pitcher with incredible talent, accomplishing so much with a style uniquely his own. But what truly set Luis apart was his zest for life, embracing every moment with an infectious spirit, even in the face of his many challenges.

“He channeled everything into his love for the game and the people around him. He was magnetic and had a smile that could light up Fenway Park. Luis was truly one of a kind and all of us at the Red Sox will miss him.”

He finished up with the Pirates and Angels, the bag running out of tricks in 1982, after 229 wins — when wins mattered — a 3.30 ERA and 2,416 strikeouts. What Tiant did, coupled with who he was, should have landed him in the Hall of Fame, but voters of the time, maybe considering those numbers as spread too thin across that many years, and with so many 300-game winners to consider, never elected him. If he were still on the ballot when I began voting, he’d have had my vote. I wish the veterans’ committees corrected this flaw while he was still around.

But Tiant, whatever his disappointment, never voiced bitterness. What the geopolitics of his time took from him, his family, his home island, mattered more. But he stayed in the game, he coached, worked with kids. He knew the power of his words, his smile, and what it meant for fans to shake his hand, pose for a picture, feel his bearlike arm around their shoulders. He never disappointed them, either.

In 2007, he was allowed to return to Cuba and it became the subject of a documentary, “Lost Son of Havana.” A few years later, it was screened at Wesleyan University and Tiant came to meet and greet viewers. After he signed with Cleveland in 1961, Castro decreed that Tiant could return home and play as an amateur, or never return. His father had to stay behind and work in a gas station until 1975.

“For 46 years I couldn’t go home,” Tiant told me in the theater lobby that evening, “because of politics. That’s crazy. Imagine not being able to see your family, your friends, your county for 46 years?”

He was allowed to return and reconnect with relatives, at age 70, because he was coaching with a team from Nicaragua.

“It completed what I wanted to do in my life,” he said. “I have a great family, I live a decent life. I got to do a lot of things I never thought I would get to do. But I would pray to God, ‘please, let me go back before I die.’ Now, when I die, I will be happy.”

He lost much, but he gained and gave a great deal to a great many. The one man who got to be El Tiante, he re-lit his life over and over, and and it was good, so good, to the last puff.

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