As regular Plant City Times & Observer readers know, we like to have some fun on (and around) April 1.
Though our efforts haven’t always sat well with the audience, we’re proud to report that we’re transparent about our efforts to pull your leg on one holiday out of the year. I’m not sure how many of you, if anyone, believed my piece on Strawberry Crest’s horse racing team, but I did get some blowback in 2016 about Durant’s canine track star.
There certainly is a problem with fake news, as well as fake sports news — which I’ve covered in the past, regarding trade deadline Twitter activity — but we appreciate that readers were able to share a laugh with us on the one day where a little bit of fake news is OK.
I saw a lot of good sports news pranks on that Saturday, ranging from the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights LED-adorned jerseys “leaking” to Arsenal manager Arsené Wenger (finally) stepping down from the English soccer club, but there was one prank that took the cake.
It was the one prank so well-constructed that, I must admit, made me a little jealous that I hadn’t come up with it myself.
The Baltimore Ravens announced that day that they were going to commission a cruise ship to bring the team to England for this year’s London matchup with the Jacksonville Jaguars. It’s a fine concept on its own, but the execution is what set this prank apart.
Rather than just spring a quick press release on its website, the team went as far as to write a detailed story and create a video package with coach John Harbaugh discussing the benefits of adjusting to different time zones while boating rather than flying. No jet lag, no problems, right?
All that, plus photo “evidence” of a cruise ship with a built-in, full-length football field, fooled a lot of Ravens fans and had the media buzzing.
Had this been released on any other day, I might have believed it. But many on Twitter were reminding the team to bring Dramamine to help with sea sickness, asking if tickets would be open to the public and, of course, bringing up other NFL boating incidents that have gotten teams in trouble in the past. As a team-sanctioned boat trip, however, I don’t think things would have gotten out of hand.
It was a perfect, harmless prank, and April Fool’s pranksters will have a hard act to follow in 2018.
You won’t read about a Plant City High sports team commissioning a cruise ship in 2018, but just know that the Ravens’ prank inspired me to step my game up for next time.