Take me out to the ball game

Minor league baseball is known for wacky fan-promotion gimmicks.

Like Free Vasectomy night. (You didn’t get it done there. You got a coupon. And I guess you had to be a guy.)

And now Free Funeral night. (As with the vasectomy promotion, this is one you cash in later.)

That’s what Elaine Fulps won at a recent game with the Grand Prairie AirHogs.

Grand Prairie, I know, is near Dallas. I don’t know what an AirHog is.

The promotion succeeded, as most of these wacky ones do. Elaine has a free funeral waiting for her when she checks out. More people know about the AirHogs, although most of them still don’t know what that critter is.

If other minor league teams want to keep pace, they’ll come up with some zany promotions too. I hereby suggest:

1) Free Foreclosed Home Night. Win the front-door keys to a home that some moron financed with a subprime loan. The only downside is you have to throw the family living in it out on the curb.

2) Free SUV Night. Since gasoline got more expensive than milk, all kinds of big ol’ SUVs are suddenly available for next to nothing — and in this case, literally nothing. There is a big disclaimer, however: The gas tank is empty on this behemoth. Bring lots of credit cards for the drive home.

3) Free Cross-Country Airplane Ticket Night. Win this baby and you can take the trip you’ve always dreamed of. By the way, it is coach class, which means you are scrinched on a seat 18 inches wide next to the lavatory. And the inflight movie is "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story."

4) Free tickets to the 10 town hall meetings proposed by John McCain for him and Barack Obama. … OK, maybe this one wouldn’t turn them out in droves.