North Texas team offers free death

GRAND PRAIRIE -- The Grand Prairie AirHogs minor league baseball team will award a prize no one will be eager to cash in on right away.

The minor league baseball team will award a funeral to a fan during its June 3 game, part of a promotion team officials have dubbed "All Hogs Go to Heaven." The funeral expenses, valued at $10,000, will cover a casket, headstone, services and a plot.

The sales manager of the cemetery participating in the promotion said the award's expiration date is the same as the winner's.

"If you're 20 and you get it and you live to be 90, of course we'll still honor it," Oak Grove Memorial Gardens sales manager Ron Alexander told The Dallas Morning News.

The AirHogs, new members of the American Association of Independent Baseball, have other promotional gimmicks to lure fans: a pre-game kite giveaway and an unscheduled Jessica Simpson Appreciation Night. Many Dallas Cowboys fans consider the singer to have jinxed the team through her romantic relationship with quarterback Tony Romo.

"Unfortunately, when they lost the playoff game, everyone said she's bad luck," team vice president Dave Burke told the newspaper. "I want to prove she's not bad luck. I'm going to guarantee a victory that day. If we do lose, (fans) get a ticket to any future AirHogs game."