Florida Full of April Fool's Day Pranks Both Past and Present

With my passion for the Sunshine States history, it came as no surprise to me that Florida played a prominent role in a list of the 100 greatest April Fools Day pranks assembled by the Museum of Hoaxes. Crazy things seem to happen in Florida, as anyone who remembers the 2000 presidential race can attest.

Placing second on the list was the classic article by the late George Plimpton that ran in Sports Illustrated on Mets pitching phenomenon -- and figment of Plimptons imagination -- Sidd Finch who was in spring training with the team in St. Petersburg back in 1985.

Also making the list was the news report from April 1, 1998 that Disney had bought out MIT for almost $7 billion. There would even be a Donald Duck School of Linguistics and a Scrooge McDuck School of Management. The list also had the news that scientists in Florida had made Viagra for hamsters.

Simply put, Florida is full of hoaxes and pranks ranging from the pirate Gasparilla, who never existed, to the Sunshine State version of the sasquatch known as the skunk ape. Accounts of Hernando de Sotos march through Florida all attest to Timucuan tribes trying out their share of hoaxes (and who can blame them?) insisting that enemies to the north had gold -- which the Spanish would no doubt find once they left Timucuan lands.

And sorry, Ponce de Leon did not come to Florida looking for the Fountain of Youth -- and he probably did not come as far north up the Florida coast to where the Fountain of Youth tourist site can be found in St. Augustine, or to Jacksonville -- where a bust of the explorer gazes out over the St. Johns River that he did not discover.

Now if they put a statue of Sidd Finch in front of the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, on the other hand