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Business was slow at Oil Patch Cadillac-John Deere, the kind of slow where tumbleweeds got better mileage than the sales team. So in a flash of marketing genius—or possibly desperation—the dealership partnered with the Fort Stockton Mud Hens for a joint promotion. Guess the number of balloons stuffed inside a brand-new 2024 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing and win use of the car for a year. Throw in free box seats and a commemorative visor, and suddenly folks who hadn’t been to a Mud Hens game since the Clinton administration were lining up with guesses and dreams.

The Cadillac in question was parked just past the third base line at Governor Coke Stevenson Memorial Ballpark. Finished in Summit White with Sky Cool Gray and Jet Black leather, it shimmered in the desert sun like a mirage with a payment plan. They’d popped the Ultraview sunroof and stuffed balloons in every crevice, from the trunk to the glovebox. A local balloon artist named Daisy (who also sold corn dogs) spent three hours cramming in 4137 latex orbs while arguing with a parts runner about helium ethics.

Trixie from the Klip-N-Dye submitted her guess—4137 exactly—two hours before the first pitch.

Nobody said a thing.

Not at first.

Trixie had a way of knowing things. And she also had a way of knowing the Sales Manager at Oil Patch Cadillac-John Deere, one Dwayne Purcell, in a way that could only be described as recent. Rumors began to bubble like cheap perm solution.

“I heard she buttered his biscuit,” Lucinda said, pouring coffee at the Grounds for Divorce diner the next morning.

“Not just buttered,” said Delgado. “I heard she brought syrup.”

But nobody could prove a thing, and Trixie smiled wide for the press while holding a balloon in one hand and her oversized hair-sprayed bouffant in the other. She was named the winner during the seventh-inning stretch of the Mud Hens’ home opener. The whole scene was more pageant than baseball.

The Jim Bowie High School drill team—the Pocket Knives—formed a giant catcher’s mitt on the outfield grass while the All Girls’ Choir from Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern sang a hauntingly off-key rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

That’s when they brought the keys out.

Mayor Goodman handed Trixie the fob with one hand and held a single celebratory balloon and a Post-It Note with his personal cell number with the other. The crowd roared. Trixie lifted the keys like she was being crowned Miss Permian Basin.

Then the Cadillac rolled forward.

Slow. Graceful. As if cued by divine timing or hellish misfortune.

The press box murmured. Lucinda, halfway through her third Diet Rite, stood up.

“Is that thing… moving?”

“It’s moving,” said Rusty Hammer. “And it’s aimed at the dugout.”

The car had been left in gear—manual transmission, six-speed, a detail someone at the dealership forgot or figured didn’t matter. The balloon count was right, but the parking brake was wrong.

The CT5-V Blackwing rolled like a showroom ghost across the foul line, past the third base coach, and directly into the visiting team’s dugout.

It struck the corner with a carbon-fiber thump and sent a Gatorade cooler airborne. The opposing team’s star shortstop, one Marco “Zipline” Alvarez, leapt to avoid the rear tire and landed awkwardly on a discarded batting donut.

The game was paused. Zipline was benched with a twisted ankle and a bruised ego.

The Cadillac was fine.

Trixie looked horrified. Or maybe just windblown. Her bouffant never flinched.

By the next morning, the Mud Hens had issued a public apology and the dealership posted a photo of Dwayne Purcell holding the keys with a look that suggested neither syrup nor balloons were worth this.

Zipline Alvarez filed a grievance with the league. His manager called the whole promotion “a vehicular ambush.”

Trixie returned the Cadillac.

“I just wanted the attention,” she said at the salon. “Didn’t expect it to go full Christine on the local news.”

The Mud Hens won the game 7–2. The opposing team, distracted and down a shortstop, never found their rhythm again.

The Cadillac was put back on the lot with a markdown and a note on the window: Driven Once. By Fate.

And at the Grounds for Divorce, no one ever said it out loud, but they all kind of hoped Trixie would win something else soon.

Just not with wheels.

Later that week, Daisy the balloon artist, was interviewed by the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch. “I told them balloons were inherently unstable. Nobody listens to Daisy.”

The dealership’s social media tried to spin the whole thing as a “performance driving demo,” but the video of the car creeping toward the dugout had already gone viral. One TikTok captioned it: When your ex wins the giveaway.

Dwayne Purcell, still employed but noticeably less smug, was reassigned to “outreach coordination,” which mostly involved checking the helium tank and apologizing to local youth leagues.

Meanwhile, the Mud Hens started a four-game winning streak, and some folks quietly wondered if the Cadillac hadn’t cursed the other team—or blessed their own.

And Trixie? Well, she kept the commemorative visor. “At least that part fits,” she said.

Everyone agreed: it was the most exciting seventh-inning stretch since the streaker in ‘92, and far less jail time involved.

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An ad appeared for the Caddy in the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch the following weekend:

Oil Patch Cadillac-John Deere Ad Insert – Monday Special Edition

🚘 2024 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing

Was: $94,000

Now: $83,995

Includes: ✔️ Carbon Fiber Packages 1 & 2
✔️ Ventilated Massage Seats
✔️ Slightly Used in Dugout Collision
✔️ Clean Title, Colorful History

Slogan: “Drives like a dream. Parks itself—sometimes.”

Visit us at Oil Patch Cadillac-John Deere, where our vehicles are fast, our promotions unforgettable, and our parking brakes double-checked.