“There’s no single sport that has the hold on our dreams and fantasies the way baseball does. Sidd has become a symbol, like the cornfield in Iowa.” — Myra Gelband, former Sports Illustrated editor _______________________ In an era when Hollywood was creating uniformed ballplayers walking out of cornfields and crushing majestic moon shots in to the New York City sky, the famed George Plimpton was busy crafting a fictional baseball character too: Hayden “Sidd” Finch. [...]

It’s now been a quarter century since Sports Illustrated pulled off one of the most elaborate and memorable pranks in sports. It was 25 years ago on this day, April Fools Day, that the esteemed sports magazine ran a featured story on the Mets latest pitching phenom, Sidd Finch. Finch wasn’t just an ordinary phenom, far from it… More like other worldly… I mean what else do you call a kid who can blaze a 150 [...]

Twenty-five years ago today, the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated hit newsstands.  Amongst all the coverage of the NCAA Final Four was one particular article that caught the eyes of many Mets fans. The late, great George Plimpton had written an article for that particular issue called “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch”.  In the article, Plimpton went on to discuss how Finch was a rookie who was invited to Mets’ spring training [...]