Sidd Finch

See Also: Gambit Archives

We started the week with an April Fool's Day gambit, and by god we're gonna end with one.

Here's a link to an old Sports Illustrated column: The Curious Case of Sidd Finch. It's long, but keep this in mind: this was published before the internet, headline news, and MTV had completely demolished your attention span. It comes from a time long ago (1985) when people didn't mind reading long articles that gave them actual information about things that were going on in the world instead of just short bites of opinion packaged to sound like the absolute black-and-white truth. So basically, don't complain to me that it's too long is what I'm saying.

I'm not gonna give a re-cap, you'll either read it or you won't. What I want to talk about is the way that I think this could only happen in a sport like baseball. People are willing to accept that in baseball, someone can come along with a strange pitching motion, or a new pitch, or a new batting stance, and not only thrive, but in some cases dominate. In last night's Mets/Nationals game, for example, Chad Bradford came on to pitch in relief. Now he's not a star, but the fact is that he's had a solid career, and his knuckles brush the ground with every pitch he throws. No one else does it like he does, and chances are almost no one else has or will. So Plimpton's story about a can't-miss Mets prospect who's well, eccentric, and does things with a baseball that have never been seen before, it flirts with being a totally believable story, because we accept these almost fabled things that can happen in baseball. (It does help that the thing is fantastically well written, and that he did it in 1985, before the internet helped folks keep up with the minor league rosters, too.)

But hey, that's just me, I love baseball. Maybe Chess Boxing is more your thing. (Thanks to Deadspin for that link.)