April Fool’s Day always leads to a ton of dumb things put out there, tweeted about, and later revealed to be “jokes.” (See “Voltswagon.”) It also sometimes leads to actual mistakes being passed off as April Fool’s “jokes” in retrospect. It’s not 100 percent clear which one applies to a tweet from the DC Streetcar (a free official Washington, D.C. government-run transit line) Thursday that featured a photo of Bryce Harper (who signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in February 2019, and remains with that franchise) alongside information on streetcar operations for Washington Nationals’ home games. The account then deleted the Harper photo, reposted the tweet with a photo of Juan Soto and the same information, and claimed “April Fool’s,” but if that was intentional, it certainly wasn’t a great “joke.”
Long live the screenshot pic.twitter.com/nTaqqjsdYm
— Ryan Eades (@ryan2499) April 1, 2021
April Fools! Glad our Nats fans are alert and ready for a great season!Take the Streetcar to outdoor dining and parklets on the corridor to support the home team!#DCStreetcar #HstGreatSt #HstStrong https://t.co/tOSpudRYFo pic.twitter.com/AlraUvXJmU
— DC Streetcar (@DCStreetcar) April 1, 2021
So, either the DC Streetcar account used a photo of a hugely-prominent player who hadn’t played for the Nationals since 2018 without realizing it and then tried to use April Fool’s Day as cover, or else whoever’s behind this has a widely different sense of what constitutes a “joke” than many. In either case, it’s yet one more dumb thing to happen on April Fool’s Day.
[Ryan Eades on Twitter]
