Today is April 1, which is the traditional "celebration" of April Fool's Day.Back in my Oakland Press days, I spent more than an hour trying to track down a rumor that Kirk Gibson, at the time a very popular Detroit Tiger, had been traded to another team.
A couple Detroit disc jockeys read the item as a "real" sports item on their April 1 show and sent hundreds of fans racing to their phones to confirm the rumor and many of them called the Oakland Press.
An editor told me to start working on the story for a new front page and even my pointing out the obvious date to him did not dissuade him from charging ahead a full speed to confirm the rumor.
I was part of the "team" because by some quirk of fate I had appeared on a morning radio show just a month before with Kirk Gibson's mom on a local radio show that originated from the Pike Street Restaurant, therefore I was deemed a "friend" of the Gibsons.
Finally, a sports writer got through to the Tigers, who adamantly and repeatedly denied the report and also pointed out the obvious date.
But because editors hate to be wrong, we continued ahead with a story about how the joke had spread so far and that story did appear that morning. Eventually, Gibson was traded to another team, but long after that April 1 day.
All this is a warning to you today to be wary of strange tales and requests. But in case you are a fan of April Fool's pranks here's a little story on some great ones. Feel free to add your own.
10 comments:
At first I thought it was an April Fool’s joke when I heard the Flint Journal’s Publishers son was ascending to his father’s position. Apparently, it appears to be true and the joke is on who is left over there and the rest of the community.
As a lifelong Tigers fan, I assure you Kirk Gibson was never traded away from a Detroit uniform. He left via free agency.
April Fool's Day 1999, I called my parents to tell them my wife was pregnant with our third child.
Six months later, I had to call them again to tell them I really meant it this time.
June 2000, our "surprise" was born.
Booth editor named "Leader of the Year" by 'Management' magazine.
Yeah, I know. These gags have to border on realism in order to be effective.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/01/guardian-twitter-media-technology
Best April Fool's of the day. I especially love the twitter length headlines from the past.
I hope no one in Booth saw this -- they might it was the next big thing...
OK, you're right, Kirk Gibson was definitely not traded.
My love for baseball ended with the last player's strike. I couldn't tell you two people who are on the Tigers roster, or any other team for that matter today.
When I was a kid I bet I could name the starting lineups and the pitching rotation for every National League team in the 1950s and early 1960s. Probably a few lineups on the American League side as well.
But today I really have lost my zeal for baseball.
The Steroid Era has really curbed my appetite for baseball, along with my favorite team Houston Astros' incredibly-ugly uniforms and their owner who doesn't grasp that letting go talent and replacing it with glorified career minor leaguers won't equal success.
A friend from church used to be Kirk Gibson's neighbor in Lapeer County. He said Kirk wasn't a very friendly man.
How about one that has a local angle?
A few years back, the Free Press ran an item that bullfighting was coming to Tiger Stadium (this was about a year after Comerica Park opened.)
They quoted some PR guy from a bullfighting association in Hamburg, Germany. There were all kinds of other clues that it was a joke.
Nonetheless, TV5 ran with it as a real news story and used a tape showing Comerica Park instead of Tiger Stadium to boot.
An excellent April Fool's joke would have been to suggest that we'd have more adequate coaching this year for the Houston Astros. Just wondering if a few PR stunts wouldn't give them the tickets sales to pay better coaches?
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