In past years, we’d roll out a series of phony stories on April Fool’s Day, with each item becoming slightly more ridiculous until it became obvious (or, at least, it should have been obvious) that the stories were made up.
As the audience grew, we decided that it would be more appropriate to steer clear of creating confusion and frustration. Now that we’re part of the NBC Sports family, we won’t be rolling out any phony stories on April 1. (Or, as some of you might say, any more phony stories that we ordinarily roll out.)
And we point this out two days early in the hopes that we won’t be flooded with e-mails from well-meaning readers who share with us links to stories that are deliberately fabricated, like the one about the National Organization for Women asking Ndamukong Suh to change his first name and the NFL’s Competition Committee exploring the decision of the Ravens to build a nightclub next to “Three Rivers Stadium” in Pittsburgh, apparently in the hopes of luring Ben Roethlisberger and/or Santonio Holmes into yet another legal entanglement.
Some of you may accuse us of being killjoys. But, given the quality of the April Fool’s jokes that already are surfacing, we have a feeling that most of you will thank us.