There’s a group of people who are good at pranks and perform them not just on April Fools’ Day but any old-time — baseball players.
Blaine Boyer, Atlanta Braves: “In the minor leagues in Scranton, we convinced one of our players that his hotel room was haunted and a ghost was trying to kill him, and he almost moved hotels before we told him. He packed his bags and was getting ready to move hotels. It was unbelievable. We were all down eating in the lobby, and I got the key from his roommate. I went upstairs and rearranged his room. He notices when things are different. When he was sleeping at night, we came running in. That was picture perfect.”
Kyle Kendrick (photo courtesy Philadelphia Inquirer)
Wes Helms, Florida Marlins: “In spring training when I was with the Phillies, they told Kyle Kendrick that he got traded to the Japanese league (for a player named Kobayashi). They wrote an original contract with the general manager and had his jersey and everything made up in Japanese. They had his agent in on it, the media on it, and his mom in on it. He thought he was traded, and the look on his face — I mean, you can’t — that’s something I’ll always remember. Everybody held their face for a good 15 minutes.”
Chad Billingsley, Los Angeles Dodgers: “Jason (Schmidt) switched his jersey with Clayton Kershaw, and he didn’t know it, and he had to go out before the game and take pictures with fans and stuff. He had Schmidt’s jersey on; he didn’t know it. Schmidt wore his jersey out for the National Anthem, and they had it on the jumbo tron. That was funny.”
Moe Drabowsky, eight teams in 17 seasons (perfect for pranksters): Having played for the Kansas City A’s, Drabowsky knew the intricacies of the stadium’s bullpen phone system. He also knew the number for the home team’s bullpen. So one day, when playing against the A’s in Kansas City, while A’s starter Jim Nash was pitching a dominant shutout, Drabowsky, seated in the opposing bullpen, summoned his gruffest manager voice, grabbed the bullpen phone and called the A’s pen. “Get Krausse up!” he bellowed and slammed the phone down. “You should’ve seen them scramble, trying to get Lew Krausse warmed up in a hurry,” Drabowsky said later.
Derek Bell thinks his Jeep is being auctioned off (photo courtesy BarDown)
Joe Carter, Toronto Blue Jays: Derek Bell was very proud of his Ford Explorer SUV, so it makes his dumbfounded expression all the more glorious when he saw his beloved car driven onto the field at the then-SkyDome while the public address announcer intoned “one lucky fan will win Derek Bell’s jeep.” Teammate Joe Carter orchestrated the whole thing.
Ken Griffey, Jr., Seattle Mariners: In 1995, during batting practice, when minor-league phenom Scott Davison was throwing, Seattle manager Lou Piniella bet Griffey a steak dinner he wouldn’t hit a ball out of the batting cage. Griffey didn’t know that Piniella had already ordered the pitcher not to throw the hitter anything near the strike zone. Piniella won the wager. Later that week, with half the Mariners lined up outside Piniella’s office door, Griffey told him, “I bought you that steak.” Piniella opened the door and came face to face with 1,200 pounds of beef. “I opened that door with a little trepidation,” Piniella said, “but I didn’t expect a cow.”
I’ve saved the best for last ….
“Sidd Finch,” New York Mets: Finch never existed. He is the subject of the notorious April Fools’ Day hoax article “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch,” written by George Plimpton and published in the April 1, 1985, edition of Sports Illustrated. His full name was Hayden Siddhartha “Sidd” Finch. According to Plimpton, Finch was raised in an English orphanage, learned yoga in Tibet, and could throw a fastball at 168 mph. His “yogic mastery of mind-body” was the secret to his pitching prowess. SI recruited Joe Berton, a junior high art teacher who stood 6-foot-4 and wore a size 14 shoe, to play Finch.
The Mets gave him a uniform with #21 and a locker between George Foster and Darryl Strawberry. The story was accompanied by photos of Finch at spring training with Lenny Dykstra and Mets’ pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre. The three major networks, CBS, NBC, ABC, and the local St. Petersburg, Florida, newspapers sent reporters to Al Lang Stadium for a press conference about Finch. Mets fans were thrilled to learn of their new phenom, and many fell for the prank, as did a New York sports page editor and two baseball general managers.
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This article appeared in The Vacaville Reporter on March 28, 2020.
