Surprise 41 year old rookie may earn chance to close for Reds

[savafan]

http://tinyurl.com/fsgbe

Cincinnati (AP)--Cincinnati Reds general manager Wayne Krivsky stunned many around baseball today when he made the surprise announcement that a 41 year old rookie pitcher may be the leading candidate to be the closer in the Cincinnati bullpen this season.

"He walked away from baseball twenty-one years ago to pursue a musical career," said Krivsky, "he called me this week and said that he had regained the passion to attempt one more shot at major league baseball."

He is Sidd Finch, a 41 year old former french horn player, who first attempted a baseball career as a 20 year old in 1985 with the New York Mets.

Finch had never played baseball, but was said to have "learned the art of the pitch" through Tibetan mind-mastery taught to him by the great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa in Tibet, where he travelled after a short stint as a student at Harvard University.

Unfortunately, Finch suffered a loss of his pinpoint accuracy near the end of that 1985 spring training and walked away from the game.

"I spent the last three years living alone in the mountains of Nepal to reflect on my life." said Finch, "I believe that I can help make the Cincinnati Reds a strong contender in the National League Central in 2006."

Scouts who saw him throw on the side yesterday were stunned that Finch appears to have regained that control that made him so highly regarded 21 years ago. One pitch was even clocked at 113 miles per hour.

Krivsky put his arm around the six foot eight inch pitcher, smiled, and with a wink, said, "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga —and his future in baseball."

[oneupper]

Don't You just love days like today!

[pedro]

Sidd Finch was the subject of a notorious article by George Plimpton in the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated.

Sidd (short for Siddhartha) Finch was supposedly a rookie baseball pitcher in training with the New York Mets. Finch, who had never played baseball before, was attempting to decide between a sports career and one playing the French horn. What was astonishing about Finch was that he could pitch a fastball at an amazing 168 mph, far above the record of a mere 103 mph. He also wore only one shoe when pitching.

Finch grew up in an English orphanage and was adopted by an archaeologist who later died in a plane crash in Nepal. After briefly attending Harvard University, he went to Tibet to learn "yogic mastery of mind-body", which was the source of his pitching prowess.

The subhead of the article read: "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga —and his future in baseball." The first letters of these words spells out "Happy April Fools Day". Despite this clue and the obvious absurdity of the article, many people believed Finch actually existed. The magazine announced it was a hoax on April 15.

The story was accompanied by photographs of Finch, including one of him talking with the Mets' actual pitching coach, Mel Stottlemyre. The Mets cooperated with the hoax, even providing a uniform for Joe Berton, a junior high school teacher from Oak Park, Illinois who posed as "Finch" for the photographs.

Plimpton broadened his article into a novel, first published in 1987.

[deltachi8]

Ah, I still remeber the Sidd FInch issue of SI...hard to believe its been so long.

[Hap]

I've got some ocean-front property for sale near the point where the Ohio River spills into Lake Erie.