Major League Baseball's Opening Day happened to fall on April Fools' Day this year, but it's unclear whether the rosin bag that exploded on Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher A.J. Burnett was a practical joke or for real.
During his first Opening Day start against the Chicago Cubs Monday, Burnett was circling the mound in between batters. He picked up the rosin bag and went to tap it against himself when it exploded, sending a white cloud of powdered rosin everywhere.
MLB announcers speculated that it could have been an April Fools' prank but no one has copped to it.
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"If so, it was a pretty good one," Burnett told reporters after the game. "That's my day: One (bad) pitch (for a two-run homer by Anthony Rizzo) and the rosin bag."
Burnett went on to strike out 10, but the Pirates fell to the Cubs 3-1.
Burnett, 36, is a notorious jokester, often pulling his pie-in-the-face prank on unsuspecting teammates to embarrass them during postgame TV interviews. Some said the exploding rosin bag could have been payback.
Pranks in baseball are commonplace, especially on April Fools' Day. In the 1970s, Sports Illustrated famously ran a feature on a new pitcher the New York Mets found who could supposedly throw 150 mph. Readers who looked at the story carefully found out that pitching phenom Sidd Finch didn't really exist and it was all an April Fools' Day gag on baseball fans.
But it was
Google, YouTube, and Twitter that pulled some of the best gags this year. Google introduced its Nose smelling feature, Twitter announced it would start charging for vowels, and YouTube claimed it was shutting down for the next 10 years to decide which of its millions of videos is the best.
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