OT- Your shoes are untied…and other real life sports stories which seemed like April Fools
It’s that day. Taking a slightly different twist. What real sports stories, when you heard them, made you say “no way, that can’t be real”.
A couple for me:
- The Cleveland Browns move, literally, in the middle of the night to Baltimore. One of the weirdest sports stories ever.
- Dennis Rodman appoints himself as an ambassador to visit the leader of North Korea, who actually accepts the meeting.
And a few closer to home:
- Michigan AD apparently misses phone calls about their football head coaching hire because he’s on a yacht.
- Michigan football is legitimately investigated by NCAA because they spent an extra 15-35 minutes stretching as reported by the local media.
A Michigan assistant football coach dressed up as a CMU assistant coach and snuck onto the MSU football field in order to learn MSU's signs.
A Michigan assistant football coach had a torrid love affair with a shark.
A Michigan analyst dressed up as a CMU assistant coach and snuck onto the MSU football field in order to learn MSU's signs.
Important distinction there.
(I also don’t think he snuck on the field, nor was he there to learn the signs. He was invited by CMU to share his sign knowledge to their staff.)
Prove it.
There's a very good reason why that one is very hard to believe.
Harbaugh comes here to coach. Actually goes 0-5 against OSU to start. Then skips a year because of a global pandemic. Then coaches back-to-back-to-back Big Ten Championship teams, beats OSU three times (ok, two+), and wins a national title, beating Alabama along the way.
Craziest one of all
I logged in just to see if people up or down voted you.
Gotta love The Bee!
For me nothing will top Rutgers and Maryland to the Big Ten. It just seemed too ridiculous to be true at the time. Yet here we are.
Also OJ Simpson. <ducks>
Nebraska’s entry was an odd one too…
For those of you on MGoBlog too young to remember - Sports Illustrated's 4/1/85 edition was host to the greatest April Fool's joke ever when covering the young pitching phenom for the Mets, Sidd Finch - who could throw the ball above 150 mph. Many people believed the story was real - or at least wanted it to be.
Give the story a read here - even had pictures from the Mets for credibility and even more humor. Great writing by George Plimpton, you will enjoy it:
We had fun with that one back in the day. Some of my friends were groaning about their team having to face him in the regular season before they figured it out.
I thought it was cool that the subtext under the headline spelled out "happy April fools"
I'll be damned. Nice writing.
"Happy april fools day ah fib"
Even the ending sort of works.
February 11, 1990. The unbeatable undisputed heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson if fighting a club fighter Buster Douglas in Japan for a paycheck.
When the news initially broke that Tyson got beat I did not believe it. Hell, I dont think I believed it for quite a while and figured it was all some elaborate hoax given how completely dominant Iron Mike had been as a champion.
July 12, 1979
Disco Demolition
White Sox officials had hoped for a crowd of 20,000, about 5,000 more than usual. Instead, at least 50,000—including tens of thousands of Dahl's listeners—packed the stadium, and thousands more continued to sneak in after capacity was reached and gates were closed. Many of the records were not collected by staff and were thrown like flying discs from the stands. After Dahl blew up the collected records, thousands of fans stormed the field and remained there until dispersed by riot police.
As a once card carrying member of D.R.E.A.D, I approve of this message.
IYKYK
and for those of you who don't... Detroit Rockers Engaged in the Abolition of Disco
As fellow D.R.E.A.D. member, I concur.
As a gold card-carrying D.R.E.A.D. member, I concur.
And don't forget to show your card at Harmony House for $1 off cassettes
do you guys know what the hours are at tech hi-fi? i need to get a new cassette player.
Still have my DREAD card!
The White Sox in that era had a bunch of funny promos. I believe they put a 'little person' into the batting line up and the opposing pitcher was unable to hit the tiny strike zone.
Eddie Gaedel or something like that.
I still remember watching this on TV and wondering what the hell just happened. Tiger players were sitting in their dugout with batting helmets on and holding their favorite Louisville slugger as protection from the mob. Game two of the doubleheader was forfeited to the Tigers.
Referring to the disco demolition game.
Culture wars have been going on in the USA for a long time.
The whole OJ Simpson saga, from the Bronco Chase to the trial and aftermath, doesn’t feel real.
Another would be Kevin Durant joining Golden State. Seemed unfair and too cowardly for a MVP to join a 73 win team who just beat you after you chocked a 3-1 series lead to go to the finals.
Elvis Grbac, named People Magazine's "Sexiest Athlete" (Link for anyone not familiar with the story.)
LOL to whoever styled that photo. All I see are his feet.
... Not that there's anything wrong with that.
You know what they say about guys with big feet...
They got big shoes!
I mean that's a pretty average looking dude.
I believe the story is that it was supposed to be Rich Gannon. The photographer showed up and said he was there to take pics of the quarterback and wound up doing the shoot with Grbac by mistake.
Sounds like the photographer got April Fooled!
Detroit Lions assistant coach arrested after going through Wendy's drive-thru naked.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2006/09/09/naked-drive-thru-order-got-lions-assistant-nabbed/
The limo accident with Vlad Konstantinov.
Hey, my shoes WERE untied. Thanks!
Barry Sanders retiring before the start of training camp in 1999
Poor Barry did not get the sendoff he deserved because so many people assumed it was a negotiation tactic.
What I remember hearing was that he retired, but he'll be back by the Fall.
Sooooo... no one is going to mention The Horror?
It'll always be too soon.
From the OP:
Michigan football is legitimately investigated by NCAA because they spent an extra 15-35 minutes stretching as reported by the local media.
This is why you still see <freep> tags in posts.
Thurman Munson dies in a plane crash. That will always seem unreal.
John Beilein leaves for the NBA
Mystery reviewers may have or may not have smothered sales of prominent book launch by "journalist" that instigated stretch-gate.
Kobe dying in a helicopter crash was mine. Off-court life aside, he is my favorite basketball player of all time. When I saw the ticker on ESPN I was stunned.
Mel Tucker gets fired for sexually harassing a rape survivor whose role is to eliminate rape culture in athletics.
Manti Te'o admitting that his tragic dead girlfriend story was all made up