The Curious Case of Sidd Finch

by George Plimpton

  Tennis players have been told since infancy to keep their eye on the ball, but they have no true affection or interest with the ball itself. Tennis balls are not kept on the mantelpiece. Too many of them around. Who cares? Golf balls are illusive and small; they infuriate; they are whacked into the bushes; they buzz off like yellow jackets.

  But Sidd had done something to the ball of baseballat least in the one game he had pitched. He had removed all its familiar associations. When the ball got into his hands, it was almost impossible to see; the comforting sounds it normally made were removed: the easy slap of the ball into a fielder's mitt, the cork sound of the bat against the ball. Suddenly a phrase from his April Fool's Day letter to the Mets came to mind: the ball had become a thing-what was it?-"of Chaos and Cruelty."

  At Shea I had a short visit with Frank Cashen-chat- ting mostly about Sidd Finch and his state of mind in New York. He told me he was having a terrible time with Sidd's reluctance to say anything to the press. The requests had been voluminous, obviously, from every quarter of the media. He had tried to let Sidd know that the situation could be controlled. Dwight Gooden had gone through the same problem the year before. Jay Horwitz, sitting right beside him, had helped him through the press conferences. The arrangement could be the same. Sidd wouldn't even have to speak. Jay would speak for him. "Sidd Finch likes New York. Sidd Finch is going to visit the Statue of Liberty," and so forth. If Sidd wanted to say anything, he could pass Jay notes. (I thought of Jay reading a series of koans to the press.)

  "How did he react?" I asked.

  "He said he wouldn't. He was very polite and apologetic," Cashen said. "I had the sense he felt part of his spirit could be talked away-the way, you know, certain tribal people feel they lose part of their souls if you snap their picture? He was scared of being asked about his pitching. Disruptive maybe. It'd be like asking a pro golfer whether he breathes in or out when he swings."

  Cashen grinned and ran his hand through the close crop of his hair. I noticed he was wearing a beaded copper bracelet.

  "When he gets harrassed he says these weird things, doesn't he? We'd finished talking about the press. He looked at me and said, `The ass looks at the well; the well looks at the ass.' "

  "Hmmmm."

  After my chat with Cashen, I was ushered in to see a security agent named Bill F. Scott. We talked in a small airless office somewhere in the innards of the stadium.

  "Mr. Temple," he said, "we've had a report from a source that we have to worry about a little bit."

  "Oh?"

  "It's of concern since Sidd Finch is staying with you. The report, in brief, is that an argument broke out last night in a social club in Astoria-Abe's Fish and Stream. It's a mob hangout. The guy we're worried about is a big hood, a three-hundred-pounder, named Al `Big Cakes' Caporetto. There are two things to remember about Al-or Big Cakes if you prefer."

  "Al," I said. "I prefer Al."

  "First, he's crazy about the St. Louis Cardinals. He either came from St. Louis or did a couple of jobs there, during which he picked up this passion for the team. He wears a Cardinals cap, they say, even on the job. Tassels on his Italian shoes. Second, he tends to flare up-a quick, violent temper. He has a reputation, a very well-founded one, for being a compulsive hit man."

  "A compulsive hit man?"

  "A guy who gets overenthusiastic and tends to blow away more people than he's supposed to. He's not considered very reliable by the capos. A maverick."

  "What happened in Abe's Fish and Stream?" I asked.

  "He and a guy named Noodles McGuire got into an argument."

  "Noodles?"

  "That's what they call the guy," the security agent said. "Hardly any flesh on him. Turns sideways and you can hardly spot him. Record as a cat burglar. Very wiseass guy with a high voice like a rasp."

  "What was the problem?" I asked.

  "The argument was about Finch."

  The security man explained that Caporetto had apparently read the article about Sidd in a three-month-old Sports Illustrated he'd picked up while having a haircut. After piecing his way through it he had announced hotly to the barber that the contents were a fraud. He had repeated his feelings to a table of his kind at Peter's Pizza, a hangout in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn, and later at Abe's Fish and Stream in Astoria. It was there that Noodles McGuire, who had heard through the grapevine that Finch had rejoined the Mets organization and was going to pitch that afternoon, taunted him into betting a substantial amount that Finch was not only for real but was going to pitch a couple of shutouts in a row.

  "The odds on two shutouts in a row are huge, of course," Scott said. "If Caporetto loses the bet when Sidd pitches this Thursday-he stands to lose a bundle, not only to Noodles, but a real big one to the bookies."

  "What does this have to do with Sidd?" I asked.

  "Well, the word we get is that Caporetto might try to tamper with Finch's performance. He boasted he was going to take matters into his own hands."

  "Nothing much I can do about that," I said.

  The security man leaned over his desk. "At worst he might try to damage Finch on home territory-where you're staying."

  "Shouldn't you move him to a hotel?" I asked. "Where we're living-the Mullins apartment-is not exactly a fortress."

  The security man suggested such a move would attract more attention. "Moving guys in and out of hotels," he said, "is a security nightmare. Too many people around. Your street is quiet," he pointed out. "A dead end. Just the kind of place we like. We'll put a security man down in front of your apartment house. It's no more than a precaution. After all, this guy Caporetto has no idea Finch is living there."

  "Should I say anything about this to Sidd?" I asked.

  "You're kidding me! No, no, nothing!"

  From the urgency of his voice I guessed that he knew something about the catastrophe in the enclosure at Huggins-Stengel back in April. Sidd was obviously not to be put under any mental pressure. "I want you to understand that everything's under control," he said firmly.

  "That's fine," I said. "I'm very glad to hear it."

  On the way out of the parking lot I spotted Sidd by the clubhouse entrance, waiting for his ride home. I stopped the car and leaned out the window to wave at him. He grinned and said he would tell someone inside that he was going back to Manhattan with me.

  He got into the front seat and folded his hands in his lap.

  "How did practice go?" I asked.

  "I managed a foul in the batting cage," he said with a grin. "Around the field the Mets players clapped their hands. The one they call Mookie Wilson shouted, `Hey, man!' In the batting cage I thought of Sadaharu-how he thought of the ball as something to eat-the wolf devouring the rabbit. I thought of ma, the space between the pitcher and the batter that one must control." He shook his head. "But it was of small avail. I have no appropriate mantras or ngags for hitting a baseball. I craved the sanctuary of the dugout. It is clever that designers of ballparks have put in dugouts like burrows into which one can duck to hide one's shame."

  "Did they teach you how to steal a base?" I asked.

  Sidd laughed. "That is against my tantric principles. I do not believe I will put myself in a position to do such a terrible thing."

  Bill F. Scott, the security gentleman, telephoned me later that afternoon.

  "Did you drive Sidd Finch home?"

  "Yes," I replied. "Piece of luck. I happened to see him waiting for his driver."

  "So we understand. Did you take an evasive action on the way back into Manhattan?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Did you go up one ramp and down another, run a light or two to shake anybody ... ?"

  "Why no."

  "Hmmm."

  "Are you telling me we were followed?"

  "It's a possibility. Finch's regular driver follows a whole procedure to lose guys-the press, for example. Just in case."

  "I drive a fairly nondescript car," I said. "It's my sister's. It's awfully easy to
lose in traffic."

  "That's a relief. Any distinguishing features?"

  "It's a rather dusty station wagon. It has an old George McGovern sticker on the back window, come to think of it, and an I Brake for Whales on the rear bumper. That's about all."

  "What about the license plate?"

  "Actually, it's one of those personalized plates," I admitted. "It says SALTY IV. That's the name of my father's yacht."

  The security man sighed. "Well, we'll hope for the best," he said. "The chances are big, very big, that you weren't followed. But if you were, you sure didn't make it rough for them. You could have tied a dozen tin cans to the bumper."

  "I'm sorry."

  The security agent said, "Well, if you get a phone call from a guy with a muffled voice who says that if Finch pitches on Thursday he'll get himself turned from a righthander into a left-hander, let me know, will you?"

  "Absolutely."

  X V-1

  I I HE NEXT MORNING, after Sidd was taken off to practice at Shea, and Debbie Sue left to take a river trip around Manhattan on the Circle Line, I called an old friend and writer, Gay Talese, to ask his advice about Al "Big Cakes" Caporetto. I could not rid my mind of the security agent's account of the three-hundred-pound "wise guy"-the current term for a mobster-the threats he had made in Abe's Fish and Stream Club, and the chilling fact that he was known as a compulsive hit man! Talese had won a Pulitzer Prize for his study of the mob, Honor Thy Father. He was astounded to hear from me. "My God, it's been ten years. I heard you've been in"-he paused, and I had the feeling he was going to say "sanitarium," but he shifted at the last-"in the East," he said vaguely. He wanted to plan a dinner and "catch up on things." I said I would look forward to that.

  In the meantime, I had a favor to ask. Without referring to Sidd by name, I asked Gay how the mob would deal with a major-league pitcher who for a complexity of reasons had to be shut down ... how would they see to it?

  "You mean like how they got to Robert Redford in The Natural?"

  "I guess so."

  Gay thought for a moment.

  "I've been doing other things," he said.

  "Yes, I know," I admitted.

  He cleared his throat, and after mentioning the ob vious possibilities-bribes and financial inducements (as in the case of the Chicago Black Sox), harassment, telephone threats, the intimidation of relatives or lovers, that kind of thing-he said that the mob would probably contact one of the third-world union people.

  "Who are they?" I asked.

  "In baseball they're the guys who hold fairly specialized low-grade positions-sub-groundskeeper stuff. The guys who paint the foul lines and come out with the steel mats and haul them around to sweep the base paths halfway through the sixth inning. Whoever puts the rosin bag out behind the mound. The guy who drives the pitcher in from the bull pen in the golf cart ... those are the guys you have to watch. They can be reached."

  "You mean they might put poison in the rosin bag?"

  "Exactly. Doctor the rosin bag with something that cramps up the pitcher's fingers. He picks it up, toys with it, and his fingers are like steel hooks for twenty minutes. Or driving the pitcher in from the bull pen. For thirty seconds they've got him defenseless, sitting there in the front seat with his baseball glove in his lap."

  "You mean they'd simply drive out of the park with him?"

  "Why not? They'd turn and head for the left-field exit, where some accomplice-another third-world union guy -would swing open the gate and they'd be sailing through the parking lot before you could say `scat.' They'd shove the pitcher in the trunk of a Chevy in one of those body-shop alleys behind Shea and be off to Hoboken."

  "Hoboken?"

  "That always seems to be on the itinerary in this kind of thing." Gay laughed at the other end. "I'm being a little overdramatic."

  "You don't think they'd simply break the pitcher's arm?"

  "That's a little Little Caesarish," he said. "These mob guys tend in most cases to be fairly low-key. In the case of your hypothetical pitcher, they'd get some guy to close a car door on his fingers. Hey, how about this guy Sidd Finch? Twenty-seven strikeouts! You going to Shea on Thursday?"

  "I'm going to try, Gay," I said.

  "I wouldn't miss that one for anything!"

  Not minutes after my conversation with Gay Talese, the doorbell rang. I had just started a desultory game of solitary pool on the Mullins table. The cat, Mister Puss, was sitting on the window seat. The river moved by in the background. His ears perked at the sound of the bell. Through the intercom system I asked who it was. Scroggins, Scraggle, some such name.

  I buzzed him in, but I kept the apartment door locked and looked out the peephole to see who was coming up the stairs. Anyone over two hundred pounds I decided to keep out.

  The man appearing in the peephole seemed harmless enough-stout but small, carrying a tan suitcase-obviously neither Big Cakes or his shadowy nemesis, Noodles McGuire. Nor did he remind me of a "third-world union" man. I let him in.

  He looked around.

  "Am I the first?" he asked.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The bubble gummers haven't turned up yet?"

  His name was Tom Scranton. To my astonishment, he knew that Sidd Finch was living in the Mullins apartment. Before I could find out how he knew, he had his suitcase open.

  "Got some items here that'll interest you and Sidd Finch," he said. "Sidd's going to be contacted by lots of people wanting his endorsements. The sportswear people are going to contact him. So are the shoe people, the bat and glovers, the bubble gummers, you name it. My line is gimmicks-dolls that bounce on the back shelves of cars, state-of-the-art things like that. Right?"

  I said I was not really in a position to answer for Sidd Finch.

  He was reaching in his sample case. He pulled out a mug in the shape of a face.

  "Are you familiar with toby jugs? A hundred years ago it was a big Dutch and English item. Right? Just about every king had his likeness done as a toby jug. Henry the Eighth. Charles the First."

  "You'd like to do Sidd Finch as a toby jug?" I asked.

  "Right on! We're looking to the kids' market," Scranton said. "A kid's more likely to drink his milk if it's out of a Dwight Gooden or a George Brett mug. An adult, a guy sitting at a bar ordering up a rye and ginger ale, wants to drink out of a glass, not a mug that looks like a face. Right? But a kid's different. Look, he drinks right out of the top of the guy's head." He demonstrated. He smacked his lips as if the mug contained a liquid. "The whole item retails for $10.95." He held it up. "This one's a Fernando Valenzuela, but you get the general idea."

  I explained that I couldn't speak for Sidd. I wasn't his agent. As far as I knew, he didn't even have an agent.

  "Besides, Mr. Scranton," I went on, "I don't think Sidd believes in the kind of worldly goods you've got there in your suitcase-the toby jugs, the little wooden bats. To be frank, Sidd just doesn't care about income. He gets through life with a beggar's bowl and a long stick."

  "I've read about all that," Scranton said. "If this guy's only got a bowl and a stick, he's going to want to improve his life-style, right? The perks. The fast cars. The Nautilus equipment. The stereo. He's got to have a roof over his head. Give Finch a credit card and you'll see what happens."

  "Possibly."

  Scranton asked if he could leave a few samples for Sidd to look over. "Compliments of the company." He left me the Valenzuela mug, a miniature bat, a few dolls (I recognized a Gary Carter model), a catalog of the various items his company offered, and a business card.

  "You sure the bubble-gum guy hasn't been here yet?" he asked. "He's usually on hand before the signature on the contract is dry."

  "No," I said. "Sidd doesn't chew gum. He's a peppermint man."

  After Scranton left I called up Smith, the Mets security expert, to tell him I'd had a visitor.

  "What?" He seemed agitated. "Did you let him in?" he asked.

  "He seemed harmless enough," I said. "
A small man carrying a sample case. But what surprised me was that he knew Finch was living here. He knew the address."

  "What's the guy's name?"

  "Scranton," I said. "Tom Scranton. He sells mugs that look like faces."

  "Just a sec," the security man said. He was apparently looking in his files. "Scranton's okay. He's a Mets licensee. He's on the `Need to Know' list."

  "Who else is on the . . . `Need to Know' list?" I asked.

  "About twenty or so, I'd guess."

  "Twenty!" I said in astonishment. "I thought this was supposed to be a secure location."

  "Well, there's Mr. Cashen. Mr. Doubleday. The personnel department. Tickets. Sidd may want some comps. The coaches ... Steve Garland, the trainer ... people who might have to get in touch with him for one reason or another."

  I could not resist asking, "Does the guy who puts the rosin bag out on the pitcher's mound . . . does he know?"

  "What's that? Listen, not to worry," the agent said cheerfully. "We got an operative watching your place. Relax. I'll tell you who else is on that list."

  "Who?" I asked.

  "You're on it."

  "Oh. Well, I'm very glad to hear that," I said.

  When she got back from her boat trip around Manhattan, I told Debbie Sue about Big Cakes. I put it simply: that the Mets security people had warned us to be on the lookout for an "overemotional gambler" (I didn't use the words mobster or compulsive hit man) who had bet too much on the Thursday game coming up. He might try to influence Sidd, perhaps even with physical harm. He was a huge man, over three hundred pounds. Wears a Cardinals baseball cap. Hard to miss. If she saw anyone like that, she should ... well, keep Sidd away from him, and let me know. Sidd was not to be told anything about this. The Mets hadn't; their thought was that his frame of mind might be disturbed.

  Debbie Sue's eyes widened slightly at all this, but she seemed very collected-cool was the word-and I was surprised. It struck me that a nineteen-year-old girl confronted with the possibility of dealing with an overemotional three-hundred-pounder bent on harming Sidd would produce more of a reaction. She nodded and started telling me about her trip around Manhattan. Looking up at the Mullins apartment as the Circle Line boat went past, she told me she had spotted Mister Puss outlined distantly in one of the windows. She startled a number of people sitting on the slatted seats around her by shouting out his name.