The Curious Case of Sidd Finch

by George Plimpton

  So Johnson came down to St. Petersburg and hung around Florida Avenue outside Mrs. Butterfield's rooming house for a week. Johnson reported later to Sports Illustrated, "I was being paid for it, so it wasn't so bad. A sort of vacation for me. I spent a lot of time sitting opposite the boardinghouse on a municipal bench looking up, so I'd get a nice suntan. I held a metallic sun reflector under my chin. Every once in a while I saw Finch coming in and out of the rooming house dressed to play baseball and carrying a funny-looking black glove. He was picked up and driven away.

  "One night I heard the French horn. He was playing it in his room. I have heard many great French horn players in my career-Bruno Jaenicke, who played for Toscanini; Dennis Brain, the great British virtuoso; Anton Homer of the Philadelphia Orchestra-and frankly I would say Finch was on a par with them. Very hard to believe. I was staggered. He was playing Benjamin Britten's `Serenade,' for tenor horn and strings-a haunting tender piece that provides great space for the player-when suddenly he produced a big evocative bwong sound that seemed to shiver the leaves of the palms. Then he shifted to the rondo theme from the trio for violin, piano, and horn by Brahms-just sensational.

  "The shift from one to the other was quite odd, it occurred to me later, almost as if one had shifted from one classical music station to another. But never mind, it was sensational. It may have had something to do with the Florida evening and a mild wind coming in over Big Bayou, and the sound of the tree-frog chorus in the background; it was remarkable. I told this to the Mets and they immediately got nervous. They sent me home-presuming, I guess, that I was going to hire the guy. That's not so farfetched. He can play for Philomusica anytime."

  According to the piece, Davey Johnson, the Mets manager, seemed to have the most controlled and phlegmatic attitude about all of this. In the canvas enclosure, he had apparently seen Finch throw about half a dozen pitches. "They talk about a guy who can throw a strawberry through a locomotive," he said. "I thought of that when I saw Finch throw. He's dangerous. Hell, if that fastball's off target on the inside, it'd carry a batter's kneecap back into the catcher's mitt."

  But as far as talking to Finch about becoming a baseball player, he was leaving that to the front office. "I can handle the pitching rotation. Let them handle the monk. There's only one thing I can offer him, and that's a fair shake."

  The Sports Illustrated article ended with a series of hypotheses. Suppose Finch could resolve his mental reservations about playing baseball. Suppose he was signed to a contract. Suppose he came to Shea Stadium on April 9 for opening day against the Cardinals. Presumably he would mow down the opposition in a perfect game. Twenty-seven K's. They'll put the K's up on the front of the tier in left field. Perhaps Willie McGee of the Cards might get a foul tip. Suppose Davey Johnson, realizing that in Finch's case the symbiotic relationship between mind and matter were indefatigable, pitched Sidd every three or four days at that blinding, unhittable speed. What would happen to Dwight Gooden's ego? Would Gary Carter, Ronn Reynolds, and the backup catchers last the season subjected to the steady concussion of fastballs coming in 16o-odd mph? What, in fact, would it do to major league baseball as it is known today?

  Sports Illustrated had gone to Peter Ueberroth, the newly elected Commissioner of Baseball, about this. The Commissioner was asked if he had heard anything about the Mets' new phenomenon.

  No, he had not. He had heard some rumors about goings-on in Mets spring camp, but nothing specific.

  Did the name Sidd Finch mean anything to him?

  Nope.

  The magazine told the Commissioner that the Mets had a kid who could throw the ball over i 5o mph. Unhittable.

  Ueberroth had taken a minute before asking, "Roll that one by me again?"

  He was told in as much detail as could be provided about what was going on within the canvas enclosure of the compound-that a superpitcher was coming into baseball-so proficient at his skills, so unbelievably fast, hurling the ball with such absolute accuracy, that the delicate balance between pitcher and batter could well be thrown into disarray. What was baseball going to do about it?

  "Well, before any decisions, I'll tell you something," the Commissioner finally said, echoing what the magazine suggested could very well be a nationwide sentiment for the coming season, "I'll have to see it to believe it."

  "Whew!" I exclaimed when I had finished the piece. I looked across at Debbie Sue.

  "It's going to be different now," she said.

  I shrugged. "Perhaps."

  Sidd appeared across the little lawn. He was carrying a weedish-looking flower, which he gave Debbie Sue.

  "I've read the piece in Sports Illustrated," I said. "You've seen it?"

  "Yes."

  Sidd did not seem disturbed. Perhaps he was relieved that the private sanctuary of his days in the canvas enclosure and the bungalow were over. We settled ourselves on the porch. Debbie Sue went to make us some iced tea. The phone rang on occasion. No one bothered to answer it.

  "I understand from the article that Davey Johnson offered you `a fair shake.' "

  "Yes," Sidd said. "It was very nice of him, though at the time I was not sure what a `fair shake' was. A milk shake? Debbie Sue has corrected this misapprehension."

  "It means that he hopes always to be on the level with you."

  "Yes, I understand," Sidd said. "I like Mr. Johnson. He chews tobacco. He wishes to stop, but his concerns make him reach for the round tin. You can see the outlines of the round tin in the back pockets of many of the players' pants. I have given him a mantra that will help him stop. When I join the team there are two or three other mantras that may be of use-"

  "You're joining the team?" I said carefully.

  "Oh, I think so," Sidd said. "I have worked it out in my mind. I do not think I will play into the twilight of a career, but I will do it for a while."

  "Have you told Debbie Sue?"

  We could hear her stirring ice cubes in a pitcher out in the kitchen.

  "She is very emotional about it."

  "Have you told the Mets?"

  "Not yet," Sidd said. "I thought you'd like to do that yourself. I suspect they've been calling all day."

  I wondered if he suspected my links with the Mets were stronger than they had suggested.

  "If you wish me to," I said vaguely.

  I called them up a half hour or so later. Jay Horwitz was ecstatic. They had been worried about the effect of the Sports Illustrated article.

  "He didn't seem to be bothered by it," I said. "He seems rather relieved that it's all out in the open."

  "How about the girl?"

  "She seems edgy. It's going to be quite a change for her."

  "It's all a publicity director's dream," Jay said happily. "Wait'll I tell the press about lung-gom."

  I asked Jay if he knew that Sidd had perfected his skills by throwing rocks at snow leopards ... to keep them from getting into the yak pens.

  "Good God!" he said. "Snow leopards! Yaks!"

  He called a few minutes later to say the Mets had decided to call a conference the next day, April i, at noon in the clubhouse. He would tell the reporters about the snow leopards and the yaks and so forth. He could hardly wait to see the expression on the face of Dick Young of the New York Post. After warming up in the enclosure Sidd would then go out and throw a few from the mound on the Huggins field so the press could watch his stuff.

  "This seems reasonable, doesn't it? He'll answer questions?"

  "I don't know," I replied. "I'll ask him tonight."

  We went out that evening to celebrate. Debbie Sue spun between the two of us as if we were her ballet partners. We went to Jack's with the fishnets hanging from the ceiling and the tables outside on the dock. The Venetian lanterns lit the water. The yachts came down the canal to tie up. The men, wearing white ducks and blazers, and the women, with sweaters draped over their shoulders, stepped off on the dock to have dinner.

  One of the pleasures of going out-at least for mewas the attention D
ebbie Sue attracted. I have no idea how it affected Sidd. I never saw him look out into the perimeters of the place. But I could see the people stirring at their tables, gossiping about the girl with us. I behaved as if Debbie Sue was with me rather than Sidd-solici- tous, leaning toward her perhaps more than usual, rearranging the napkin in her lap, laughing sharply at odd moments, behaving, in sum, like a dolt.

  I was contained enough to remember to say to Sidd, "They want you to put in an appearance at the press conference tomorrow." It was difficult to imagine Sidd standing before the microphone banks, his little bow, his palms together, and his soft "namas-te."

  "What happens at a press conference?"

  "They will ask you how your arm feels. They always do."

  "And then?"

  I shrugged. "You can tell them how your arm feels and then you can say `namas-te' and go to the beaches."

  "Owl, that's not the way it's going to be," Debbie Sue said. "They are going to hound him."

  "Very likely."

  "I will speak to them if I have something to say," Sidd said.

  "That is not how it works," I said. "It's if they have anything to ask."

  Debbie Sue thought he should play the French horn for them. " `Strawberry Fields.' And then," she said, "you can do some of your better sounds. What would they like to hear? You could do an old-fashioned typewriter. A goose honking."

  She dipped angrily into her dessert. I had no idea why she was upset. Sidd felt her mood as well. To amuse her he did a goose call right there in the restaurant, absolutely perfectly, and as heads turned Debbie Sue looked down at her plate, her hair tumbling forward, and I had the woeful feeling that for some reason she was crying inside that golden tent.

  We got back from Jack's around eleven. To my relief, and I'm sure Sidd's, Debbie Sue didn't mention going down to the Bay for the usual porpoise romp. She'd said she'd had a long day.

  I heard the tap on the door-soft, somewhat tentative.

  I was awake-as usual, trying with an unsuccessful series of mental exercises to calm my mind's busy meanderings sufficiently to drift off.

  Debbie Sue came in and sat on the end of the bed. In the vague light I could see she was wearing one of my button-down shirts.

  "Do you mind talking?"

  I made a move to get up. "No, don't budge." Her hand drifted out and she grabbed at the mound where my feet pushed up the blanket.

  "I'm thinking of leaving Sidd." Her voice was throaty; I could tell she was close to tears. "It's no use. It's not going to work."

  I asked her what the problem was.

  "It was all right when things were simple. But now it's different. He's going to pitch. Crowds. He's going to become a celebrity. And besides, I don't see much point in being in love with a man who's interested more in The Void. Right? He's tried to help me reach The Void. Empty the mind, he tells me, and he says to think of the wake of a submarine disappearing into the deep. Count to a hundred. I sit in the lotus position and I try. My mind just doesn't work that way.... His skin smells a little bit like pepper? Have I told you that? I'm hopeless."

  Absentmindedly she began massaging my toes through the thickness of the blanket.

  "Do you know what he said to me once? He said, 'Debbie Sue, you are a very unlikely candidate for achieving bodhicitta'-that's what everyone strives for."

  "What did you say?"

  "I said, `Well, fry my ass.' It just came out. He didn't seem to mind. I don't think it makes much difference to him."

  I asked, "Do you have arguments with him?"

  "Oh, no. But Owl, being in love with a Buddhist monk isn't easy. But what am I doing this for? I don't see him settling down, do you? Monks don't. They're in love with something else. They're in love with the idea of being monks, at least that's what I think. I wish it were all different. I love to hear him talk about the trains in the ballroom of that house in London. I love to hear him play his horn. I love it when we swim naked in the Bay at night. But it's all going to change."

  "Maybe baseball will change him," I suggested. "Baseball will be his expression of bodhicitta."

  "I'm too selfish," she said. "I don't want anything else to have him."

  She sat for a while in the darkness. "Tell me something, Debbie Sue," I said. "How did it start? What happened there in the dunes when you came ashore that day on your Windsurfer?"

  ?„ "Why?„

  "Well, Sidd's ... ah," I said awkwardly, "not exactly a prize catch-at least not on the beaches around here."

  "What about love at first sight?"

  I shrugged. I could sense her smiling in the darkness at the foot of the bed.

  "I know what you think, Owl. You think I was sent by someone. That's why you yelled that awful word at me a couple of days ago in the hall-`Ueberroth!' You thought I was going to break down and fess up to everything. `Yes, yes, I am from the CIA.' "

  "Something like that," I admitted.

  "Oh, Owl, you're too paranoid. Sometime I'll tell you what happened in the dunes. But not tonight."

  I asked if Sidd was aware of her dilemma.

  "I think so," she said, "I think he reads my mind. Yesterday he told me a sutra of Buddha's to help me out. It's about a tiger who chases a man to the edge of a cliff. The man grasps a vine and swings out over the edge. The tiger comes to the edge and looks down at him. And then from down below, another tiger appears and looks up at him. And then guess what? Two mice, one black, and the other white, begin to chew on the vine. The man sees this. So he lets go of the vine with one hand and he grabs a strawberry from a bush growing in the cliff face. He pops the strawberry in his mouth? He thinks, `How sweet it tastes.' "

  "He's telling you to look on the bright side of things?" I asked.

  "Oh, I guess so," she said. "But it doesn't help much."

  I asked her what she thought she was going to do.

  "I might go and see my father. But I'm not going to tell him what's happened-that I've fallen in love with an English-Buddhist-monk-pitcher. I don't know if he could take all that. I can't tell him I've gone crazy over a guy who can throw a ball farther than he can hit it with a golf club. Besides, I don't know how Dad feels about Buddhist monks. He'd get it into his head that I was going with a white-bearded guru, snuggling up against his shoulder in the back seat of a Rolls-Royce?"

  We shifted on the bed.

  "Do you know what I keep thinking about?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "Do you remember the oxygen tank he told us about near Mount Everest ... the one they ring to separate the monks from the nuns in the monastery when it's night? I think a lot about what an awful sound it must be."

  "I remember you said how beautiful it must be."

  "Yes. But I was thinking of the bell and not what it meant."

  "Well, I hope you think it over before you decide."

  She promised she would. "It may be just a phase," she said. "I like to have phases."

  I told her that I thought a good night's sleep might help. "I'd stick it out for a while. See what happens," I said. "You can't do yourself any harm. It might help matters."

  At the door she turned and I heard the whisper of her shirt as she bowed and announced, "I salute the spirit within you."

  X

  SHE NEXT MORNING Debbie Sue seemed in fine spirits. She begged off going to Huggins for either the press conference or Sidd's appearance on the mound. "I'll watch it on television," she said. She suggested I wear a Mickey Mouse shirt she had bought at Disney World in case I wandered into the view of the television cameras. In deference to her good mood and not wishing to jostle it in any way, I agreed to wear Mickey Mouse. She also wanted me to wear Sidd's Goofy hat with two teeth hanging from the brim of the cap and two long black ears on the side, but here I resisted.

  I left before Elliot Posner arrived to drive Sidd off to Huggins. I had two appointments on my master chart that morning. One was with Amory Blake and the second, of course, at the Mets noon conference with reporters and television p
eople at which Finch was to be presented.

  I had a strange occurrence for Blake I had read in the newspaper in Miami the time I saw Pat Jordan and talked to him about Steve Dalkowski. It was an Associated Press story about a man named Paul Tavilla who specialized in catching grapes in his mouth dropped from tall buildings. It caught my attention because it reminded me of the day we had dropped baseballs out of the blimp.

  This guy had caught a grape in his mouth dropped from a fifty-two-story building in Tokyo. He was trying to do the same thing on the sidewalk in front of the seventytwo-story InterFirst Bank Building in Dallas, Texas. Ac cording to the AP story, thirty pounds of grapes had pelted the sidewalk around Tavilla. None of them had landed in his mouth. He kept at it for almost an hour, staring up with his mouth ajar. He complained that the reflection off the glass building made it hard for him to see the falling grapes, and that the wind was a problem as well. "This is the worst wind I have had to encounter," he said to the reporter.

  "Very interesting," Blake said when I described Mr. Tavilla's problems in Dallas. "Verifiable?"

  I said the article was an AP dispatch and I gave him the date it was filed. "I have it at home."

  "How's your writing?" Blake asked. "It would please me if this item of yours was written down on a yellow legal pad."

  I lied and said I had almost done it that way. "It's slow," I said.

  "Do you have any cartoon captions for me?" he asked.

  "I'm having difficulties with the drawings," I said.

  When I left him he was writing down in a looseleaf notebook what I had told him about the man who caught grapes in his mouth.

  I had trouble parking the Volkswagen at Huggins. More cars were parked along Fifth Street, which borders the field, than usual, and I noticed a couple of big television vans. Too many reporters were on hand to cram into Frank Cashen's minuscule office, so the conference was held in the larger confines of the clubhouse locker room. There was no sign of Sidd. I stood in the back of the room. A lot of the reporters had copies of the Sports Illustrated article with the story about Finch.