PITTSBURGH — All James Sparks did was fill out a card. Three months later, it turned into $250,000.

Sparks and his wife of six years, Billie, of Irvine, Ky., received that money from Century 21 to put toward the purchase or construction of a new home, the result of the Philadelphia Phillies' Ryan Howard winning Monday night's Home Run Derby at PNC Park.

Sparks was one of eight finalists drawn from a nationwide contest who were linked to a home run derby entrant. When Howard won the derby, Sparks won a new home.

"It's all just so hard to believe," John Sparks said. "We sold our house in April and at the closing, our agent told me to fill out this card for the contest. I had no idea what I was even filling out. It was free, so I did it.

"Out of hundreds of thousands of entries, we were picked to come here. They (Century 21) called us about three weeks ago."

The Sparks have been living with his parents and were looking to get pre-approved for a home loan in a year or two.

"I guess we'll be moving out a little sooner than that," he said.

"Baseball is the national past-time and we thought we'd provide the American Dream to go with it. It's the perfect match," said John Greenleaf, Century 21's senior vice president of marketing.

Sitting on the field watching the players hit during the first round of the derby, the Sparks' dream nearly died early. Howard had to hit three consecutive home runs without making an "out" (any swing not resulting in a homer) just to advance to the second round.

Howard said he had to wait for the perfect pitch to stay in the contest.

"Nothing else I could do," Howard said. "There was no margin for error."

Howard clinched the Home Run Derby championship with his fifth homer of the championship round, a towering fly ball to right-center fields that landed on a "Hit It Here" sign, awarding a fan 500 free airline flights.

It awarded the Sparks family a new home.

Sparks and his wife have not discussed what type of home they will buy.

"We weren't taking anything for granted," Sparks said. "Even when our guy made the finals, we still wouldn't talk about it. All I know is, for our 7-year-old daughter, we're getting a house with a swimming pool."

And Howard has already received an invitation to take a dip.

"That's the first thing I said to him after he won," Sparks said. "I shook his hand and invited him to visit our new home. He just laughed. ... I hope he comes. We'd like to be able to repay him in some way.

"I was never a big baseball fan. I've got a new reason to become one. I don't know if I'm a Phillies fan. ... I do know I'm a Ryan Howard fan."

The Sparks family will continue to live in Irvine, where James works in a machine shop and Billie is employed by a battery company.

When his name was selected, Sparks and his wife were flown to Pittsburgh, put up in the Marriott, given a $250 gift card for meals and provided admission to all of the All-Star events in Pittsburgh.

"We were already winners before tonight," Sparks said. "We're just small-town people. We've never been to a city the size of Pittsburgh. We didn't know our way around at all, but the people here are so friendly. Everybody we'd run into helped us out, told us directions, made suggestions about places to go. This is a great place."

Besides giving away the $250,000, Century 21 combined with Major League Baseball to give $294,000 to Easter Seals and local Boys and Girls clubs, the result of a final-out home run promotion. Each home run hit once a player was down to his final out added $21,000 to the donation. There were 14 final-out home runs hit Monday.