Russia sent the first dog into orxbit in 1957, and since then, men, women, cats, monkeys, and even spiders have gone into space. Kids, however, have been left out of the action—until now. Convince your friends and family that the United States is preparing to send the first child into space, and the lucky junior astronaut just might be you!
what you need
* “First Child In Space Acceptance Letter” (print the download for this prank found here: workman.com/ebookdownloads)
* Scissors
what you do
THE SETUP
1 Carefully cut out the “First Child In Space Acceptance Letter” that you’ve printed.
PULL THE PRANK
1 You can pull this prank on friends, siblings, or your parents. Start by asking if they have heard about the First Child In Space program. When they say no, tell them that you learned about it from your science teacher and it’s really cool.
2 Then say, with a hint of pride in your voice, “I already sent in my application, and guess what? I got through the first round and now they’re going to interview me!” Then show them the “official” letter and fact sheet.
* If you’re pranking friends or siblings, tell them they better hurry up and apply if they want a chance at this outof-this-world opportunity.
* If you’re pranking your parents, say you need their permission to continue your application. If they balk, explain that it’s a great learning opportunity, not to mention that you will be famous for the rest of your life.
Sports Pranks
Professional athletes are lucky: They get to play games for a living. But they are also under a lot of pressure. That might explain why they pull so many pranks—it helps lighten things up. Here are eight winning sports pranks. It’s no accident that four of them involve baseball. Baseball players are definitely the champs when it comes to pranks.
HE TOOK EVERYONE FOR A RIDE
At the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, Missouri, American marathon runner Fred Lorz started getting muscle cramps. He managed to run nine miles before giving up and jumping into a race official’s car. He rode the next 11 miles. Then, as a joke, he got out and ran the rest of the way, entering the stadium and crossing the finish line before anyone else. The crowd cheered like crazy, not realizing it was a prank. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s daughter even placed an honorary wreath on his head before Lorz admitted he’d pulled a fast one. He went on to win the Boston Marathon the following year—without hitching a ride.
Pitcher Brett Myers deserves a Most Valuable Prankster award for the perfect stunt he pulled on teammate Kyle Kendrick when they were both playing for the Philadelphia Phillies. One day in 2008, the manager of the Phillies (who was in on the prank) called Kendrick into his office and told him that he was being traded to a Japanese team for a player named Kobayashi. Myers arranged for a local TV news team to be there to film the announcement—and Kendrick’s shocked reaction. The poor guy was so stunned he couldn’t speak for most of the news conference. He apparently forgot that American and Japanese teams never trade players. Myers went to incredible lengths to pull off the hoax, getting the local TV station involved and even having Kendrick sign fake trade papers. Luckily, Kendrick learned it was all a prank before boarding a plane to Japan.
SOMETHING FISHY
Moe Drabowsky was a good pitcher, but he’s remembered more for his pranks than for his game. He loved to hide snakes—both fake and real—in other players’ lockers. He would also use the phone in the bullpen, where pitchers warm up, to order Chinese food during a game. In 1969 Drabowsky and a couple of his Baltimore Orioles teammates, Eddie Watt and Pete Richert, snuck into the opposing team’s bullpen, slipped four live goldfish into the water cooler, and scurried out. The fish seemed unbothered, but the bullpen manager was furious. Either he had no sense of humor—or he was very thirsty.
FLAMING UNDIES
Before the Summer Olympic Games begin, runners carry a torch from Greece, where the ancient Games started, to the host country. In 1956 the torch had a difficult journey to Melbourne, Australia. It got drenched in torrential rains and went out several times. At one point, it was so hot that the runners nearly collapsed. But nothing beats what happened when the torch arrived in the city of Sydney, Australia. A champion runner named Harry Dillon was scheduled to carry the torch into the city and present it to the mayor, Pat Hills. About 30,000 people lined the streets, waiting for Dillon to arrive. At last, a runner came sprinting into the city. The crowd cheered as he made his way to the mayor and handed over the torch. The mayor prepared to start his speech when someone whispered in his ear, “That’s not the torch.” The mayor looked down and realized that the “torch” he was holding was a wooden chair leg with a can on top. Inside the can was a pair of underwear soaked in kerosene to make it burn like the Olympic flame.
The mayor took the prank in good humor, and minutes later the official torchbearer arrived. The Olympic-sized prank was the work of a college student named Barry Larkin and eight of his friends. When Larkin returned to college, his fellow students gave him a standing ovation. Even the head of the college could appreciate a prank well done: “Good job, son,” he said.
THE BEST PITCHER WHO NEVER EXISTED
In 1985 Sports Illustrated magazine asked the writer George Plimpton to write an article about April Fools’ jokes in sports. When Plimpton complained that most of the pranks he found didn’t translate well into print, his editor suggested he pull his own prank. The resulting story was one of the best sports hoaxes of all time.
Plimpton invented a young pitcher named Sidd Finch who he said was training with the New York Mets. According to Plimpton’s article, Finch could throw a fastball at the mind-boggling speed of 168 miles per hour. His unusual background and eccentric habits made him stand out, too: Finch had learned how to throw a baseball in a monastery in Tibet, and he liked to pitch while wearing just one hiking boot.
When the story appeared on April 1, 1985, many readers fell for it—and so did a few baseball pros. Two major league managers called the commissioner of baseball to complain that it would be unsafe for hitters to stand at the plate when Finch unleashed his fastball.
Sid Finch: The amazing pitcher who never was.
DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR?
One spring day in 2008, as the Chicago Cubs were beginning practice, third baseman Aramis Ramírez walked over to a coach named Tim Buss and asked him what his car was doing up on a ramp next to the bullpen. Buss looked up and saw a wrecked 1995 Nissan: The body was dented and all the windows were smashed. “That’s not my car,” said Buss. Then he did a double take: “Dude,” he said, “that is my car!” He knew the Cubs pitching staff was famous for its pranks, but this time he thought they had gone too far. It was his wife’s car, and now he had to tell her it was destroyed. The pitchers all kept a straight face throughout the practice. Later, pitcher Ryan Dempster told him to stop pouting and come “see something.” He brought Buss to where a brand-new SUV was waiting for him. Buss was nearly moved to tears. “They’re great guys,” he said. And great pranksters, he might have added.
French prankster Rémi Gaillard has been pulling daring stunts in public and posting them online since 1999. In 2002 Gaillard fooled French TV reporters and the president of France into thinking he had helped win an important soccer tournament called the Coupe de France. Dressed in the uniform of Lorient, the winning team, he ran onto the field at the end of the match. Jumping up and down, he celebrated with the rest of the team, shook hands with President Jacques Chirac, and even signed autographs without anyone realizing that he wasn’t on the team.
FOUL PLAY
After WNBA star Diana Taurasi was named to the 2012 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team, she pulled a prank on her Phoenix Mercury teammates worthy of a gold medal. Taurasi and three teammates were doing a video interview for a local sports news website. The interviewer asked Taurasi if it was true that an Olympic rule prevented her from playing with the Mercury until after the Olympics. Taurasi got very angry and stormed off the set. Seconds later, she stormed back and explained to the interviewer that her teammates did not know about the rule, and she had been planning to break the news herself.
Meanwhile, Taurasi’s three teammates did not look good. Their faces were frozen in shock and anger at the news that they would be playing without their star. About a minute later, though, they came back to life when Taurasi smiled and said, “You just got punk’d.” Player Nakia Sanford leaped out of her seat and started pounding Taurasi—playfully, of course. It turns out Taurasi had teamed up with the interviewer and invented the story about the Olympic rule. Based on that performance, Taurasi might want to consider an acting career after basketball.
