On April 1, 1985, Sports Illustrated published its famous Curious Case of Sidd Finch article. The story, by George Plimpton, was about this unusual prospect for the New York Mets who was supposed to throw 168 miles per hour, had attended Harvard, and pitched with one bare foot.

“The Met front office is reluctant to talk about Finch,” Plimpton wrote at the time. “The fact is, they know very little about him. He has had no baseball career. Most of his life has been spent abroad, except for a short period at Harvard University.”

The truth, of course, he never existed. The entire story was a hoax and remains to this day among the best April Fool's Day jokes yet. It even sparked an entire novel by Plimpton in 1987.

One hint readers might have gotten when they read the original story was the message encoded in the subhead of the opening page below. See what the first letters of each word spell out:

He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga.