Happy April 1.
30 years ago I was reading the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated when I came across The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch.
April of 1985 was a time when the Mets seemed like they were about to get better, and they were stocked with young pitching. It did not seem crazy that they would have one more awesome pitcher coming.
1985 was also pre-internet, which you youngsters just don’t understand. In 2015 we would have been following Finch’s signing and minute by minute tweets and maybe even a special on ESPN. In 1985 we often picked up the paper to see Mets recaps like “Mets at Los Angeles, night” and thus you waited another day to find out if the Mets had won.
The Finch story is great if you have never read it, and still really fun to revisit since you probably haven’t read it in a long time. I still have my original issue. Makes you wonder if Matt Harvey is real or just a marketing gimmick. One can almost picture Matt on camelback in front of the pyramids….
The best part? The 1986 Mets were so good they didn’t need Finch.
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I thought about doing an April Fool’s post this year but decided not to. It would have been something along the lines of the Mets owners deciding to sell the team because Fred and Jeff were driving down Roosevelt and saw a billboard and decided to reconsider their lives. The post would have ended with a quote from new owners Charles and James Dolan. Flesh that all out in your own minds.
