The El Salvadorean soccer team showed up in Zimbabwe to play a game against the team from Zimbabwe. Just one problem. It wasn't the El Salvadorean team. It was just a bunch of players masquerading as the national team. The score, by the way, was a tie: 0-0. This reminds me of the Moscow Philharmonic Hoax.

According to legend, the sport of Rugby was born in 1823 when a schoolboy at Rugby School named William Webb Ellis picked up the ball during a football game and started running with it. But according to an interesting piece in the 'Questions Answered' section of the London Times, this legend is probably a hoax. Unfortunately I can't link to the piece, so I've cut and pasted the relevant paragraph:

There is very little evidence to support the assertion that William Webb Ellis was the first person to pick up the ball and run with it. In 1876 Martin Bloxam, who had left Rugby in 1820, wrote an account for the school magazine based on hearsay. This was immediately contested by a peer of Webb Ellis from his schooldays. In 1895 the Old Rugbeians of the RFU set up a committee to try to keep the game in their control. They accepted the hearsay rather than a contemporary account. The journalist J. L. Manning investigated the investigators and concluded that the story was a perfect hoax and that the Old Rugbeians had falsified the history of rugby. By this time Webb Ellis himself was dead and unable to confirm or deny the story. Several witnesses, including Thomas Hughes, of Tom Brown's Schooldays fame, contested the Webb Ellis story but their account was left out of the report. The committee completed the hoax by having the commemorative stone cut and placed in the headmaster's garden.

George Plimpton, creator of Sidd Finch (which came in at number 3 on my list of the greatest April Fool's day hoaxes of all time), has died. He was 76 years old.

Olympic track star Carl Lewis was reported to have been killed in a bicycle accident in this news report. But actually Lewis is just fine. The report is a phony, rigged up by a biking enthusiast to draw attention to an abutment in a Houston park that he considers dangerous.

Did Sonny Liston throw fights to Cassius Clay in 1964 and 1965? Many feel that Clay's 1965 victory, in particular, was prearranged, with Liston falling to the mat in the first round following a "phantom punch." Mike Dunn, of EastSideBoxing.com discusses the lingering controversy.

A British reporter manages to get a job guarding Serena Williams even though he submitted a fake CV with his application. No one bothered to check his references.

The Observer details how the News of the World came to believe a far-fetched yarn about a plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham, even though their source was a serial liar.

In its latest issue Sports Illustrated has run a hoax article detailing the career of Simonya Popova, a 17-year-old rising tennis star/sex symbol from Uzbekistan. The name Simonya was a play on the recent movie Simone, about an actress who doesn't really exist. At the end of the article the author, Jon Wertheim, admits Simonya doesn't exist, but this hasn't calmed down the WTA who apparently are up in arms about the hoax. From the AP report: (WTA) Spokesman Chris De Maria called the story deceiving and was annoyed at its emphasis on Simonya's sexuality. "It was misleading and irritating," he said. "There are a lot of great stories out there. We didn't need a fake one."

More about the Great Potato Play of Aug. 31, 1987, in which catcher Dave Bresnahan threw a peeled potato out into left field in order to lure a player from third base and tag him out. Bresnahan was fired as soon as the game ended, but his name has become immortal in baseball lore. A year after the event, fans paid one dollar and one potato as admission to celebrate Dave Bresnahan Day.Pictures of Bowman Field, Home of the Potato PlayDan Lewerenz's AP article remembering the potato playA Baseball America piece about the potato play, written a few weeks after it occurred.The Official Site of the Williamsport Crosscutters discusses the potato caper in detail.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette remembers the Great Minor-League Potato Stunt:

Dan Lewerenz (AP): It's been 15 years since Bresnahan, then a backup catcher for the Class AA Williamsport Bills, pulled one of the most infamous stunts in baseball history, throwing a potato into left field to lure a runner off third base. The stunt ended his baseball career, made him an instant celebrity, even got his number retired. Yet to this day, Bresnahan is surprised by the continuing attention he gets -- all because of one lighthearted moment what seems like ages ago. "I didn't throw the potato to be famous or to make money," Bresnahan said in a telephone interview from Tempe, Ariz., where he has lived since his baseball career ended. Now 40, he works as a real estate broker. "I did it because I thought it would be fun." It happened on Aug. 31, 1987, with the Bills -- 27 games out of first place and seventh in the eight-team Eastern League -- playing host to the Reading Phillies. Bresnahan was catching the first game of a doubleheader when, with two out and a runner on third in the fifth inning, he hurled what looked like a baseball past the third baseman and into left field. The runner, Rick Lundblade, trotted home only to be tagged out at the plate. Lundblade was shocked. The crowd was confused. The Bills were laughing. Bresnahan had executed his trick to perfection.

A rogue soccer team pretends to be Romania's Olympic team.