It’s an age-old baseball strategy—the manager intervenes in an argument between one of his players and the umpire to spare the player the risk of being thrown out of the game for arguing too vehemently.
Shades of this scenario crop up in a :30 for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The ad begins on a photo of a happy-looking couple hanging in a hallway. The camera then pans over to the living room, where the wife is launching a verbal onslaught on her hubby for forgetting her birthday. After all, she yells, she circled the date on the calendar and left hints all about, but her spouse still forgot. "No flowers, no dinner, no candy, not even a card," bemoans the wife.
However, just before she goes too far and says something she might later regret, Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon appears out of nowhere. "Hey, I got this," says McClendon to the woman, as he steps in between the couple. The wife throws her husband a smug look and steps aside expectantly.
"This is her birthday," affirms McClendon to the husband. "How can you miss that call? This is the Big Leagues. If you want to stay here, you’d better get your act together."
The spot then takes us to game footage of McClendon arguing with different umpires, as a voiceover relates, "For the Pirates, every day is game day."
An end tag promotes an upcoming home game, accompanied by the Pirates logo and the "Every day is game day" slogan, as well as a phone number and Web site address for ticket info.
"McClendon" is one of six spots in a Pirates campaign directed by Will Hartman of Zing Media, Los Angeles, for agency Blattner Brunner, Pittsburgh. Hartman took on the project during his spare time; his full-time gig is as a copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather, Los Angeles. Hartman and Juliet Diamond produced the Pirates package for Zing Media.
The DP was Chris Tufty. In each commercial, a Pirate intervenes in a slice-of-life situation to exhibit how his baseball skills can come in handy in other scenarios too. The other three ads are called "Wells & Fogg," "Redman" and "Kendall."
The creative team at Blattner Brunner consisted of executive creative director Bill Drake, art director Steve Farrar, copywriter Michael Giunta, and producers Karen Smith and Amy Kersnick.
Editor was Jay Lizarraga of Outpost Digital, Santa Monica. Christine Schneider served as post supervisor/exec producer for Outpost.
George Koran of FotoKem Film and Video, Burbank, Calif., was the colorist. Audio mixer was J.G. Carter of New Perspective/Wrecking Crew Music, Pittsburgh.
