Fool's Gold.

A Rundown Of The Best Would-Be April Fools' Pranks In Dallas History.

Ask most of us here at Central Track HQ and we'll tell you straight up: We could do without April Fools' day.

Why? Hey, it's not because we're just boo-birds — we're not.

It's that most people's ideas of a joke these days is just to lie.

And that's a shame. Because, when it's done right, an April Fools pranks can really be a thing of beauty.

So, with deference to the gorgeous early spring weather, the start of the baseball season and George Plimpton, here are nine local capers we'd like to think might have actually gone down.

• April 1, 1993: William Hale tells his girlfriend that she should take Central Expressway on her way to meet him tonight, because traffic on the freeway is “actually not the bad today.” They break up on May 8, a few hours after she finally gets to his place.

• April 1, 1997: Christine Allen asks her boyfriend to pick her up a cinnamon roll from The Mecca. Thinking he'll do something nice and save her a couple of bucks, he offers to pay — something she was counting on.

• April 1, 1999: Richard Greene's kids convince the former Arlington mayor that he should head Dallas' bid to host the 2012 Olympics. “London is lame and it wouldn't be completely insane to hold the Summer Games in Texas,” they tell him.

• April 1, 2000: Belo's marketing staff convinces the Dallas Morning News' editorial board that readers love having their privacy violated and that the CueCat is not, in fact, one of the most ill-conceived ideas in the history of journalism.

• April 1, 2002: Bob Burks persuades his friend Tony Baldwin to buy Rangers season tickets because “Chan Ho Park is the last piece of the puzzle.”

• April 1, 2007: Tim DeLaughter tells anyone who will listen that The Polyphonic Spree's upcoming album, The Fragile Army, will feature a “pared-down lineup and absolutely none of that orchestral-cult-pop mess.” He says the record will be like Cowboys From Hell, but heavier.

• April 1, 2009: A friend of Dez Bryant tells the then-Oklahoma State wideout that he should feel free to lie to the NCAA should they ever question him about anything because, as they put it, the NCAA is totally reasonable and “it's not like they're an official government agency or anything.”

• April 1, 2011: Reggie Baker convinces the Dallas Observer's music editor that he can totally succeed and be even more respected than he already is if he quits his job and starts a “website or some shit” to call his own. Baker gets irrecoverably day drunk and forgets to inform his buddy that he was playing a prank on him.

• April 1, 2013: Jerry Jones informs the rest of his front office that he's hired a GM. The staff falls for it. Again.