It was 24 years ago today that Sidd Finch was the subject of one of the greatest April Fool’s Day hoaxes ever.
Sports Illustrated, in one of its most notorious articles, created the legend of Finch, a rookie pitcher in spring training with the New York Mets who had never played baseball before, yet had a fastball that was clocked at an amazing 168 mph. Moreover, he wore only one shoe when pitching—a heavy hiker’s boot. Finch attributed his pitching prowess to “yogic mastery of mind-body,” which he learned in Tibet.
Despite the obvious adsurdity of the article, written by famed SI writer George Plimpton, many people believed that Finch actually existed. SI subsequently printed a much smaller article a week later to the effect that Finch had retired, and announced “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch” was a hoax altogether one issue after that.
The legend of Finch has been perpetuated through the years—especially on April Fool’s Day or when a young pitching phenom bursts on the scene.
Well, today is April Fool’s Day and there may not be a young pitcher in all the years since SI’s spoof on Finch who has burst into our midst quite like San Diego State righthander Stephen Strasburg—unofficially, the Second Coming of Sidd Finch.
Strasburg didn’t exactly emerge from nowhere, like Finch did, but he wasn’t drafted and was barely recruited out of a local high school in 2006. Yet he has become such a sensation as a junior at San Diego State that he is on pace to shatter some of the most revered single-season strikeout records in college baseball. In six starts to date for the Aztecs, the 6-foot-5, 225-pounder is 5-0, 1.70 with eight walks and an amazing 88 strikeouts in 42 innings.
With an accelerated rate of 18.7 strikeouts per nine innings, Strasburg is not only on pace to break the NCAA Division I record of 16.8, set in 2003 by University of Houston righthander Ryan Wagner (a first-round draft pick that year of the Cincinnati Reds, and the first drafted player from 2003 to reach the big leagues), but he has his sights set on the single-season college record of 234 strikeouts, set in 1979 by University of Hawaii lefthander Derek Tatsuno.
Strasburg has been so dominant this spring that, heading into this weekend’s action, he already has 28 more strikeouts than his closest competitor and he’s averaging more than four strikeouts per nine innings over his nearest pursuer. Probably the only thing short of an injury that will prevent Strasburg from breaking both records is if San Diego State fails to advance to post-season play—a reality since the Aztecs have not done so in Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn’s six years as coach. But the Aztecs, thanks mainly to Strasburg’s dominant pitching, did rise to No. 27 in PG Crosschecker’s latest weekly college rankings.
While Strasburg hasn’t been clocked anywhere close to 168 mph this spring, he has thrown as hard as any pitcher ever known to man. In a recent outing, he was clocked between 100 and 103 mph on 14 occasions. He’s at a point in his development where he routinely reaches triple-digits, and yet he’s not just a one dimensional pitcher.
“He’s got the greatest combination of power, command, fielding his position and holding runners I’ve ever seen,” said Texas Christian coach Jim Schlossnagle, whose club faced Strasburg in a Mountain West Conference game last Friday and was victimized by 17 strikeouts in eight innings.
Strasburg’s rising profile has been compared most often to Southern California’s Mark Prior, the second overall pick in the 2001 draft, and Vanderbilt lefthander David Price, the No. 1 pick 2007. Both those pitchers created a significant buzz within the scouting community in the months leading up to the draft. But nothing quite like Strasburg.
Schlossnagle, who recruited Prior when he was an assistant at Tulane and coached Price three summers ago on USA Baseball’s college national team, said Strasburg is “light years ahead of them in terms of ability.”
San Diego Padres GM Kevin Towers saw Strasburg earlier this year, and told SI, “He was dominating, as dominating as anyone I’ve seen. He really has no flaws. You see guys throw in the high 90s, but they usually have no idea where it’s going. He can throw in the high 90s comfortably and locate it.”
Strasburg would be a natural fit for the struggling Padres, but as bad as they were a year ago in winning just 63 games, they actually won four games too many to put themselves in position to draft Strasburg in June. The Washington Nationals, with only 59 wins in 2008, will get first crack at Strasburg.
That could lead to an interesting scenario as the Nationals didn’t sign their first-round pick a year ago (Missouri righthander Aaron Crow, selected ninth overall), and there are rumblings that Strasburg is seeking a major-league contract with a price tag in the order of $50 million—far and away more compensation than ever given a baseball draft pick. He’ll have no less an agent than Scott Boras to negotiate such a deal for him.
So while Sidd Finch was one of the great April Fool’s Day hoaxes perpetrated on baseball, the second coming of Sidd Finch is very much alive and well. But a $50 million deal for a baseball draft pick? Now, that might be today’s April Fool’s joke.