The Curious Case of Sidd Finch

By Jay Horwitz

Forty years tomorrow, I was proud to be a part of perhaps the greatest hoax in the history of baseball or for that matter in the history of all sports. We worked with Sports Illustrated to promulgate the iconic George Plimpton April Fools’ cover story that we had signed 6–4 righthander Sidd Finch whose fastball was timed at 168 miles per hour.

Sidd was purportedly from Tibet, played the French horn and pitched with one hiker’s boot. One of the highlights for me was when we burnt a hole in the glove of one of our catchers, Ronn Reynolds, to prove how fast Sidd threw.

We kept the story going for two days until the truth became known. The person who gave the story credibility was our pitching coach, Mel Stottlemyre, who gave one great press conference after another.

Sidd Finch would never happen today in the age of X and Instagram. It was such fun to be involved with the joke. By the way Sidd Finch who is really Joe Berton, a retired Chicago high school teacher, will visit Citi Finch next week to say hello. The memories will be plentiful.