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296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987


Sidd was changing the properties & essences of the ball & the game itself. It struck me how often a ball is inspected during a game, with a pitcher comforting his fingers with the texture of the ball. Football players do not have this kinship with their ball & most of the players never even touch it during the course of the game. Neither do basketball players look at the ball rather than at the rim of the basket. Tennis players are taught to keep their eye on the ball but have no particularly affection for it. But Sidd has done something to the ball of baseball & somehow removed it from its familiar associations.Beyond his seeming aloofness from the game, Finch does have a sort of hippie girlfriend, Debbie-Sue, who walked ashore one day while surfing when Sidd & the narrator, Robert Temple, were in Florida where the Mets conduct spring training. Sidd participates in tantric sexual calisthenics with Debbie-Sue & is questioned about just how this fits with his interest in Buddhism. The book did fall into some disarray with highly implausible events late in the novel, including when a Mafia hit-man is introduced because Sidd Finch's heroics with a baseball somehow cut into national betting odds.