The Greatest Pitcher Who Never Existed
Despite their woes over the years, the Mets usually have pretty good arms on their staff.
From Doc Gooden to Max Scherzer, there’s a long lineage of Cy Young winners that have come through the organization.
So it was no surprise when the Mets announced in ‘85 that they had found baseball’s next great pitcher; a once-in-a-generation talent.
His name was Hayden Siddhartha aka “Sidd” Finch.
The guy was a complete anomaly.
Not only could he throw absolute gas, but Sidd also had an insane origin story:
Father was an archaeologist that died in a plane crash
Grew up as an orphan in England
Lived in Tibet and was a disciple of the great poet-saint, Lama Milaraspa, who was born in the 11th century and died in the shadow of Mount Everest
Studied at Harvard for a brief period of time
Finch was discovered in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, when the Tidewater Tides, the Mets' AAA farm club, were in town playing the Guides.
"I was walking by a park when suddenly this guy — nice-looking kid, clean-shaven, blue jeans, big boots — appears alongside. At first, I think maybe he wants an autograph or to chat about the game, but no, he scrabbles around in a kind of knapsack, gets out a scuffed-up baseball and a small, black leather fielder's mitt that looks like it came out of the back of some Little League kid's closet. This guy says to me, 'I have learned the art of the pitch...' Some odd phrase like that, delivered in a singsong voice, like a chant, kind of what you hear in a Chinese restaurant if there are some Chinese in there. I am about to hurry on to the hotel when this kid points out a soda bottle on top of a fence post about the same distance home plate is from the pitcher's rubber. He rears way back, comes around and pops the ball at it. Out there on that fence post the soda bottle explodes. It disintegrates like a rifle bullet hit it — just little specks of vaporized glass in a puff. Beyond the post I could see the ball bouncing across the grass of the park until it stopped about as far away as I can hit a three-wood on a good day.
‘I said, very calm, 'Son, would you mind showing me that again?'“
And he did.
From the Ken Griffey Jr. Collection / HOMAGE
Initially, the Mets were trying to keep Finch top secret, but the buzz around him just got too big.
So they unveiled their phenom with the help of George Plimpton in a Sports Illustrated article titled, “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch.”
The news hit the press on April 1st, and was met with a lot of different emotions: Mets fans were stoked, a lot of people had more questions, and other folks were just pissed off that their team didn’t sign Finch first.
There was only one problem: Sidd Finch wasn’t real.
The whole persona was made up by SI’s team as part of an elaborate April Fool’s prank that everyone was in cahoots on.
Sidd Finch was actually played by a guy named Joe Berton - an art teacher who was a friend of SI photographer, Lane Stewart.
Photo: Lane Stewart/ Sports Illustrated
Not only did SI and the Mets pull off one of the most epic pranks in sports history, but they kept it going for two weeks.
They received over 2,000 inquiries about Finch, two big league GM’s called the commissioner asking about him, and a radio talk show host went as far as claiming he saw Finch pitch.
Then on April 8th, SI ran a follow up story announcing Finch’s retirement - saying that he had decided to pursue a music career playing the french horn.
Finally, on April 15th, they announced that the whole thing was a hoax.
It’s hard to imagine how crazy this would’ve gotten in the age of social media and AI, but it’s definitely a testament to the power of a good story.
Even without Sidd Finch, the Mets won 98 games that year, and they carried that momentum from ‘85 into the following season - winning their second World Series title in franchise history.
