George Plimpton wrote his stunning article about Hayden "Sidd" Finch in an April 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, a few days before baseball's opening day. Finch, a sensitive Harvard dropout, had recently returned from Tibet where he'd lived as a trapas, or aspirant monk. He owned some clothes, a shepherd's crook, a baseball glove, and a French horn. He stood on the pitcher's mound for his spring tryout with the New York Mets wearing one hiking boot and shouted "Namas-te!" (Sanskrit for "Greetings!"). The gathered players and coaches were skeptical. But when the gawky Finch fired a 168 miles-per-hour fastball, the only sound heard across that Florida baseball diamond was the catcher's bleat of pain.
The Mets were desperate to sign Finch to a major league contract, but it would be difficult. How do you entice someone to play major league baseball who has no interest in money or fame? And Finch had many interests beyond pitching. He was a serious musician who loved to play his French horn in his bath and at the window. He played beautifully. By far the Mets' biggest difficulty in signing Finch was that Finch wasn't real. George Plimpton made him up, and Sports Illustrated ran the story as a joke for their April 1st issue.
Plimpton's article is reprinted in Sports Illustrated Baseball: Four Decades of Sports Illustrated's Finest Writing on America's Favorite Pastime. SI has long produced some of the best sports journalism, and their articles often pass over from great sports writing to great writing. Frank Deford, Robert Creamer, Steve Wulf and others contribute articles to this collection that's less about baseball than the people who play it and those of us who love it.
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