New York Mets: The Legend of Sidd Finch

On this day 31 years ago, the legend of New York Mets pitching prospect Sidd Finch was born. The only problem was that Finch never existed.

These days, it is almost impossible to sneak a top prospect by baseball fans. With the access to minor league statistics, the ability to follow games online and the numerous sites dedicated to scouting prospects, virtually every minor league player has had their career and potential ability dissected at some point in time.

However, that was not the case back in the 1980’s. Prospects were a lot harder to scout back then, and most of the information on top minor league players was not nearly as readily available. With that in mind, it was easy to understand why the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, touting a young New York Mets farmhand by name of Sidd Finch, would have created a stir amongst baseball fans.

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He was the find of noted writer George Plimpton, who spoke with members of the Mets to get a sense for the young hurler. His story was amazing – he was a British 17 year old who learned how to pitch in Tibet. The Mets negotiated with him in secret, and brought him stateside, where he reached 168 MPH on the radar gun in his first public appearance.

Finch was expected to join Dwight Gooden as the next young phenom in the Mets rotation. For those who doubted such a pitcher existed, Plimpton even had photographs showing Finch’s amazing talents. The only issue? Well, Finch didn’t exist. The photographs that Plimpton had were mocked up, and the quotes that he claimed were from actual Mets players were entirely fake.

It was, perhaps, the greatest joke played on the public at large since Three Stooges Beer was brewed, possibly by the original Stooges themselves. In fact, the joke was popular enough where a book was written about Finch, where he was called up due to numerous injuries and threw a perfect game in his first start. After his second start, where he almost threw another perfect game, Finch retired.

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It is amazing to think that Sidd Finch could have been regarded as an actual prospect and that his tale would not have set off warning signals that the article was satire. However, with how little attention most minor league players received, it was entirely possible that the New York Mets had scouted some British kid by way of Tibet who had a rocket arm.