This Ballplayer Falls for the Old ‘Deaf Teammate’ Prank [Video]

Baseball season is long, 162 games for MLB – baseball games are long, every bit of 3 hours in most cases. So players and coaches have a lot of time to come up with creative ways to mess with their teammates. I’d say baseball players are some of the most creative pranksters in professional sports. This one here is a doozy.

The victim here is Jeff Francoeur, a long-time major leaguer who is spending time with the San Diego Padres’ AAA team, the El Paso Chihuahuas. Francoeur was made to believe that one of his teammates was deaf. With seemingly everyone in the organization on board, they were able to maintain this charade for a month before finally revealing the truth to their clueless outfielder.

The stories told by his teammates and coaches and definitely funny enough on their own, and it’s even funnier to imagine Franscoeur trying to communicate with his “deaf” teammate during this period of time. But the funniest part to me is when they finally reveal the truth. To see the look on Francoeur’s face – at first confusion, followed by acceptance and then embarrassment – is the best part of the entire prank.