Pepsi Offers a Baseball Fan's Dream Exclusively at Walgreens: Throwing a Ceremonial First Pitch at a World Series Game

DEERFIELD, Ill. and PURCHASE, N.Y., Aug. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- From July 31 until August 27, Pepsi, the choice of Major League Baseball, is exclusively offering customers of Walgreens the chance of a lifetime: the opportunity to throw a ceremonial first pitch prior to a game of the 2005 Major League Baseball World Series.

The grand prize sweepstakes winner will receive a trip for four to a 2005 World Series game courtesy of Pepsi, including complimentary airfare, accommodations, game tickets, $500 cash and the opportunity to throw out a ceremonial first pitch prior to that game.

Other prizes include officially licensed 2005 World Series T-shirts, which will be awarded to 500 first prize winners; Walgreens $20 Gift Cards for 100 second prize winners; and MLB World Series official commemorative baseballs for 500 third prize winners.

"This is the thrill of a lifetime for a baseball fan," said Kathy Beveridge, customer marketing manager for Pepsi. "It's not the type of prize you can buy in a store. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience that one lucky person will remember forever."

"We're delighted that Pepsi is bringing this to Walgreens and exclusively offering a Walgreens customer this unique prize," said Craig Sinclair, divisional vice president of advertising for Walgreens.

The promotion will be supported by in-store radio advertising, a mention on Pepsi's website, http://www.pepsi.com/, and local radio tags in participating areas.

To enter, look for an official Pepsi entry form in Walgreens August EasySaver(TM) Catalog or on specially marked 2-Liter Pepsi products. Consumers can also fill out a 3" x 5" piece of paper with name, age, address, city, state, ZIP, daytime phone and evening phone and mail it to: Pepsi/MLB Ceremonial First Pitch Sweepstakes available at Walgreens, PO Box 2093, Grand Rapids, MN, 55745-2093. Entries must be postmarked by 9/6/05 and received by 9/12/05. Official entry forms found on 2-Liter Pepsi products also contain a coupon for $1 off the purchase of two 12-packs of Pepsi products.

About Pepsi

Purchase, N.Y.-based Pepsi-Cola North America (http://www.pepsi.com/) is the refreshment beverage unit of PepsiCo Inc. in the United States and Canada. Its U.S. brands include Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Edge, Pepsi ONE, Wild Cherry Pepsi, Pepsi Twist, Pepsi Vanilla, Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew Code Red, Mountain Dew LiveWire, Sierra Mist, Sierra Mist Free, Mug, Slice, Aquafina, Dole single-serve juices, Tropicana Juice Drinks and SoBe. The company also makes and markets North America's best-selling ready-to-drink iced teas and coffees, respectively, via joint ventures with Lipton and Starbucks.

About Walgreens

Walgreen Co. is the nation's largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2004 sales of $37.5 billion. The company operates 4,834 stores in 45 states and Puerto Rico. Walgreens also provides additional services to pharmacy patients and prescription drug plans through Walgreens Health Initiatives (a pharmacy benefits manager), Walgreens Mail Service, Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy and Walgreens Home Care.