Top 5 Side-Splitting Athletic Trickery Incidents in Professional Sports
Rewritten Article
Get ready for some laughter as we approach April Fool's Day! We've compiled a list of five hilarious sports pranks that will leave you chuckling. From clever ruses to elaborate skits, these pranks will amuse and inspire you.
5. Mark Cuban's Showdown
Known for his fiery antics, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban didn't disappoint fans when he got into a heated argument with a referee during a game against New Orleans on April 1, 2003. However, things took a turn for the absurd as words turned into action, with Cuban forcefully pushing the official – all captured for posterity in this YouTube video: [Link Removed].
The best part? The beleaguered Dallas head coach Del Harris, who was blissfully unaware of the joke, rushed into the fray to prevent his team owner from beating the snot out of a league official. Harris' relieved reaction at the end of the video is priceless.
4. Devean George's Court Sticker
When rookie Devean George joined the Lakers in 1999, he found himself under the watchful eye of notorious prankster Shaquille O'Neal. During his initial year in the league, Big Diesel pulled numerous pranks on George, but the most memorable was when he duct-taped George to the court of Staples Center, leaving the rookie immobile for a pulsating 15 minutes until an arena worker came to his rescue.
3. Lucy Liu's Mystery Date
Ever had your head turned by a familiar face in the crowd at a basketball game? Tony Bobbitt felt the same when he thought he saw actress Lucy Liu watching him during a home game with the Lakers in 2004-05.
Unfortunately for Bobbitt, the team vets decided to set the rook straight and had a ball boy give him a slip of paper with a phone number on it supposedly belonging to Liu. Next, they got a female Lakers employee to leave an outgoing message posing as the actress. Over the next few weeks, Bobbitt left multiple messages on the line and even sent a succession of steamy text messages. The whole team got involved and eventually set up a "date" for the pair at an LA hot spot.
When Bobbitt showed up at the restaurant, Liu was nowhere in sight, but all of his teammates were. The 25-year-old guard was later waived by the Lakers in November, and in a way, it's lucky he was, because he never would have heard the end of it.
2. Silence of the Francoeur
Jeff Francoeur found himself in the midst of a brilliant long con in 2014 when his El Paso Chihuahuas teammates convinced him that pitcher Jorge Reyes was profoundly deaf. The team planted the seeds for the prank in early April when they had Reyes stand stock still and remain unresponsive while other players around him shouted "heads up." Francoeur took the bait and began communicating with Reyes from that day forward using elaborate hand signals and dramatically overenunciating.
Reyes did his part too by remaining mute at all times and eschewing headphones in the locker room and on long bus rides. Francoeur's teammates eventually revealed the prank three weeks later by screening a hilarious behind-the-scenes documentary. Check it out below: [Link Removed]. This one has to be seen to be believed.
What makes this prank so surprising is that Francoeur wasn't a young kid getting his first taste of professional ball. The then 30-year-old had already played in the Majors for ten years with five different clubs and had won a Gold Glove in 2007 with the Braves.
1. Kendrick's One-Way Ticket to Japan
Just as it takes a village to raise a child, sometimes it takes a whole clubhouse to prank a pitcher. The Phillies tapped into the strength of numbers in the spring of 2008 when they successfully convinced Kyle Kendrick that he had been traded to the Yomiuri Giants for a player named Kobayashi Iwamura.
The Phillies starter Brett Myers, manager Charlie Manuel, assistant GM Ruben Amaro, and a gaggle of reporters were all in on the ruse and played their parts to perfection as they presented a stunned Kendrick with a new contract and led him through an impromptu press conference announcing the deal.
The MLB Network has since named it the number one baseball prank of all-time, but not everyone thinks it's a laughing matter. Kendrick fired his agent that year because of his involvement in the joke and still harbors hard feelings about being a league-wide laughingstock. Judge for yourself if you think it went too far by checking out this classic clip: [Link Removed].
- Mark Cuban's heated argument with a referee during the Dallas Mavericks game against New Orleans on April 1, 2003, presented as a surprising and entertaining sports moment, was revealed to be a prank when it was later revealed that he forcefully pushed the official as part of the prank, leaving team coach Del Harris in a state of amusement after rushing in to break it up.
- The elaborate prank played on rookie Devean George in 1999 by Shaquille O'Neal, involved leaving George immobile on the Staples Center court by duct-taping him to the court, providing an amusing moment off the sidelines of sports-analysis.
- In 2004-05, Tony Bobbitt was tricked into believing that actress Lucy Liu had expressed interest in going on a date with him, leading to a series of humorous text messages, providing laughter that entertained his teammates and left him feeling embarrassed when he realized he had been pranked.
- Jeff Francoeur was successfully pranked by his El Paso Chihuahuas teammates in 2014 into believing that pitcher Jorge Reyes was deaf, leading to Francoeur communicating with him using elaborate hand signals and overenunciation, resulting in a hilarious documentary that showcased the prank, providing entertaining off field events that highlighted the lighter side of sports.
- The Philadelphia Phillies pulled off a multi-level prank in 2008, convincing Kyle Kendrick that he had been traded to the Yomiuri Giants, leading to a staged press conference and contract signing, providing an amusing moment off the sports field that has been recognized as one of the greatest baseball pranks of all-time.
