Sidd Finch

Hayden "Siddhartha" Finch

• Bats unknown, Throws Right
• Height 6' 3", Weight 182 lb.

• Born 1955 or 1956

Biographical Information

Sidd Finch was supposedly a British baseball player who learned to pitch in Po, Tibet. In 1985, it was reported by George Plimpton in the April 1st issue of Sports Illustrated that the pitcher was being courted by the New York Mets.

The story went that after being scouted in January 1985, Finch had a secret tryout with the Mets and was signed on February 2nd following two weeks of negotiations. In his public debut, on March 17th, Finch was clocked at 168 mph on the JUGS gun, creating wild excitement, although the team tried to keep this under wraps, the better to surprise their opponents with their amazing find.

Later it was revealed that Finch was indeed a hoax and the story was an April Fools joke played on the readers.

The joke was so popular that a full-length novel was written based on the story, in which Finch is called up during a rash of injuries in the 1985 season to pitch against the arch-rival St. Louis Cardinals, hurls a perfect game - Willie McGee gets a foul tip as the original article suggests could happen - and then almost hurls another before retiring. He never pitches again after that.