All-time hit leader and newly confessed baseball gambler Pete Rose has agreed to become the commercial face for the Tennessee Lottery, a clearly elated lottery head Rebecca Paul announced at a press conference yesterday.
“This is a major league coup for us,” Paul told a roomful of reporters. “Pete is one of the best-known gamblers in the world, and he has tried out our games and loves them!”
As she spoke, Paul stood before a prototype Rose lottery ad, in which the disgraced non-Hall-of-Famer displays a toothy grin and holds up a lottery ticket. Boldfaced type reads “Be set for life, not banned for life.”
Rose, whose nickname “Charlie Hustle” has taken on an unfortunate new meaning in his post-playing days, was scheduled to be at the news conference with Paul, but was called away at the last minute by publicity demands for his new book, My Prison Without Bars. In the book, Rose, after years of denials, admits that he illegally wagered on baseball games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.
Paul, who was hired in part for her reputation as a tireless promoter of the lotteries for which she’s worked, is no stranger to controversial ad campaigns.
The Georgia lottery once ran an ad depicting death row inmates eagerly awaiting lottery results. It was intended to show that the lottery was so much fun that even the condemned could enjoy it. The tasteless tagline went like this: “Take the immediate payout.”
Not surprisingly, there were those who questioned the judgment of using a known liar and pariah within his sport to sell Tennesseans on the lottery.
“This is not a good thing,” says a local sportswriter who has known Rose since his playing days. “Doesn’t Rebecca know that just because a guy is well known, that doesn’t make him a trustworthy pitchman?”
Apparently not. Paul reportedly has feelers out to other truth-impaired celebrities, including Jayson Blair, Ken Lay and Oliver North.
“These ads are going to be great. We’re going to start this lottery with a bang,” Paul says.
(The Fabricator is satire. Don’t believe everything you read.)
“These ads are going to be great. We’re going to start this lottery with a bang,” Paul says.
(The Fabricator is satire. Don’t believe everything you read.)
