Todd Jones: The True Gatorade Story

by Ian Casselberry on Jan 28, 2008 11:49 AM EST in Detroit Tigers News

Matt Wallace just informed me that Todd Jones wrote about his appearance in the most recent Gatorade commercial for his latest SportingNews.com column. (See what you miss when you don't make a point of reading something regularly? Sorry, Jonesy.)

As we've already detailed here, Jones finds himself on the business end of a Derek Jeter walk-off home run swing, thus making him the only opponent to visibly suffer defeat in the ad. Billfer went on to prove that such an outcome between pitcher and hitter was entirely fictitious.

Playing the punching bag with Jeter was fine with Jonesy when he found out he'd get 30 cases of Gatorade, in addition to that commercial cash. Unfortunately, the fantasy that played out in his mind didn't quite match the reality.

As the clock ticks, I say to myself that I've never been in a commercial and that, wow, how cool would it be to get to fly down and hang out with Derek? Maybe he'd invite me to the charity golf tournament he has to help raise money for his foundation. I'm thinking Gatorade would probably put us up in a sweet hotel and my wife and I could get away for a few days. So I say yes and wait for the Gatorade folks to call and whisk us away to sunny Florida to shoot the spot. All will be good.

Well, not long after, my buddy calls me and says, "Dude, you're in a commercial!" I'm thinking there's some big press release and I'll have to respond in the media about how excited and honored I am to be asked by Gatorade to be the goat. But he's like, "No, I saw your commercial, and it's good, too." The Gatorade people just used some footage of me giving up a homer, which I guess is not that hard to find, and I didn't have to go anywhere to shoot the spot. I was bummed.

Even worse? Jonesy later found out he wasn't even the first choice for Jeter's Detroit Tigers batting practice pitcher. Gatorade originally wanted Mr. No-Hitter, Justin Verlander.

Jonesy gets no respect, I tell ya. But he did get plenty of sports drink for his trouble.

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