Robert Malcolm Tufts (November 2, 1955 – October 4, 2019) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher who played for the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals between 1981 and 1983.

[8] Midseason in 1983, he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for Charlie Leibrandt,[9] but never appeared in a major league game again.

[14] His wife, Suzanne Israel Tufts, served as Assistant Secretary of Administration at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 2018.

He underwent pill-based and liquid chemotherapy and reached a recovery point at which he could undergo and autologous stem cell transplant.

He was an active speaker and frequently tweeted about issues regarding the need to involve patients more in the healthcare process.

[citation needed] Tufts died on October 4, 2019, from an infection brought on by complications from a stem cell transplant on August 23.