16 Years Ago Kyle Kendrick was Traded for Hot Dog Eating Champ Kobayashi

Somehow Brett Myers convinced the entire organization, Kendrick’s agent, and beat guys to prank him into thinking he was traded to Japan for a six-time hot dog eating champion.

The amount of stuff the Phillies went through to make sure this prank worked is borderline barbaric, as explained in a 2017 article from Michael Silverman at the Boston Herald:

He was handed a copy of his $1.5 million contract.

He was handed a copy of his itinerary.

He was told to start packing his bags and get ready for an early wake-up call — he needed to be at the airport two hours before his 7:05 a.m. flight to Japan the very next morning.

He stood in front of his locker surrounded by a half-circle of in-on-the-joke baseball reporters, most of them doing a poor job of hiding their smiles, as Amaro announced the trade.

think the funniest part is the first memory anyone has when someone mentions Kyle Kendrick is this prank. We’re talking about a guy who won a World Series here at 23 and pitched in the bigs for 10 years, but for the rest of eternity on February 16th the internet will remind Kendrick of the time he got traded for the hot dog guy and he hates it:

• If there was a magic button to push that would permanently erase all copies of the 9-year-old clip that comes up when you search for “Kyle Kendrick prank” on YouTube, Kendrick would have punched it — with both fists — a long time ago.