{"id":69059,"date":"2014-04-01T17:53:48","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T21:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=69059"},"modified":"2014-04-01T18:03:36","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T22:03:36","slug":"a-vintage-plimpton-prank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/01\/a-vintage-plimpton-prank\/","title":{"rendered":"A Vintage Plimpton Prank"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/video.pbs.org\/viralplayer\/2365210670\" height=\"426\" width=\"600\" seamless=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s been so chock full of hoaxes, shenanigans, pranks, put-ons, spoofs, tomfoolery, and good-natured hooliganism that we\u2019ve almost forgotten to remind you of the hoaxes, shenanigans, pranks, put-ons, spoofs, tomfoolery, and good-natured hooliganism of yesteryear. One case in particular merits revisiting: we speak, of course, of a 1985 hoax executed in grand fashion by our late founder, George Plimpton. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/americanmasters\/episodes\/george-plimpton\/web-exclusive-plimptons-famous-april-fools-joke-in-sport-illustrated\/2947\/\" target=\"_blank\">PBS\u2019s <em>American Masters<\/em> tells the story<\/a> with help from Jonathan Dee:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>For the April 1, 1985, issue of <em>Sports Illustrated<\/em>, George Plimpton wrote \u201cThe Curious Case of Sidd Finch,\u201d a profile on an incredible rookie baseball pitcher for the New York Mets. Sports fans took his April Fools\u2019 Day joke seriously. Even other journalists were willing to believe a novice could throw a 168-mph fast ball, thanks to his Buddhist training (Sidd was short for Siddhartha, the title character of Herman Hesse\u2019s novel). To keep the hoax going, a nervous George Plimpton relied on a young Jonathan Dee, now a famous fiction writer but then an associate editor and Plimpton\u2019s personal assistant at <em>The Paris Review<\/em>. Dee describes Plimpton\u2019s tense days surrounding the hoax in this film outtake.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>American Masters\u2019 <em>Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself<\/em> premieres nationally Friday, May 16, on PBS.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s been so chock full of hoaxes, shenanigans, pranks, put-ons, spoofs, tomfoolery, and good-natured hooliganism that we\u2019ve almost forgotten to remind you of the hoaxes, shenanigans, pranks, put-ons, spoofs, tomfoolery, and good-natured hooliganism of yesteryear. One case in particular merits revisiting: we speak, of course, of a 1985 hoax executed in grand fashion by our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2353],"tags":[10529,14,8498,9691,13397,13396],"class_list":["post-69059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nostalgia","tag-april-fools-day","tag-george-plimpton","tag-herman-hesse","tag-pranks","tag-siddhartha","tag-sports-illustrated"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>George Plimpton\u2019s Famous April Fools\u2019 Day Joke<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 1, 2014 \u2013 Today\u2019s been so chock full of hoaxes, shenanigans, pranks, put-ons, spoofs, tomfoolery, and 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