April Fools

As I’m hearing Brian Lehrer on WNYC try to convince listeners that in order to counter steroid use, Bud Selig is instituting a new rule lowering strikes batters are allowed to two — not plausible, Brian! We actually watch baseball! Although at least one listener has called up believing him . . . clueless New Yorkers! — I see that the Times has written about April Fools’ hoaxes:

Shortly before noon today, the 20th annual April Fools’ Day parade will start its zany prance down Fifth Avenue, complete with whimsical floats, cacophonous music and this year’s grand marshals, SpongeBob SquarePants and impersonators standing in for former Gov. James E. McGreevey of New Jersey and the filmmaker Michael Moore, who will goad spectators to spar him on his own “wrestling float.”

Sounds like a real crowd pleaser.

As in year’s past, news cameras from around the globe will be on the sidelines hoping to capture the perfect wacky shot of what organizers bill as “a commemoration of the perennial folly of mankind.”

And as in year’s past, those reporters who do show up will end up playing the fool. That is because New York’s April Fools’ Day parade is a great big hoax, the brainchild of Joey Skaggs, the éminence grise of pransksterdom who has been duping the news media with his outlandish stunts for decades.

There’s a sucker born every minute, P. T. Barnum reportedly said, and the phantom parade, advertised through official-looking press releases, has drawn a wide range of news media outlets in the past, including CNN, USA Today and, without fail, a camera crew or two from Japan. (As of last night, Fox’s “A Current Affair” and the morning show on WB-11 news had confirmed their plans for coverage, Mr. Skaggs said.)

“Sometimes a reporter will call me from Fifth Avenue in a panic, saying he can’t find the parade, and I’ll say: ‘Oh, they’re probably already down at Washington Square. You’d better run,’ ” he said. “It’s an important opportunity for all of us to review our inherent foolishness.”

Brian just raised the bar, saying that a foul ball after the first pitch will be considered a strikeout.

This Craig’s List-related prank isn’t bad, however:

Anecdotal evidence reveals that workplace pranks are far more elaborate and mortifying than those unleashed at home. Just ask Steve Wyatt, an associate creative director at Kenneth Cole who received scores of odd calls last April 1 – some from prospective semen donors looking to collect $500 for a deposit, others from people seeking free Thai massages or cheap luxury rentals.

After a few dozen such calls, Mr. Wyatt and the company’s other victims discovered their phone numbers on a series of fake ads on Craig’s List, courtesy of some conspiring underlings. “I found it very amusing, but it did get a bit tiresome when I kept getting calls three weeks later,” Mr. Wyatt said.

Now Brian is saying that Mayor Bloomberg likes the rule change so much that he wants to build three new baseball stadiums — and lure the Giants back to New York. Representative Anthony Weiner just called in to object. I sure hope the other guy was a plant, too!