This afternoon I received the email below from Jeff Galbraith, who is one the fans featured in the “Committed” ad I posted below. I wanted to post Jeff’s response here, as it was polite, thoughtful, and worthy of acknowledgement. I’d also like to make sure that Jeff knows that, even though I posted the photo of him and his wife, I certainly didn’t mean to call him less than a “real” fan. As you will see, Jeff is as real a fan as they come.
This is Jeff Galbraith as in the Jeff Galbraith that is pictured in your article about the Committed campaign. I would like to politely argue your viewpoint that because my wife and I have a “cutesy” story that you feel we are not real fans, and do not deserve recognition like real fans. I grew up with the Cubs and learned early on thatbeing a Cubs fan was not something easy. You thinking or insinuating that I have not been upset about the past 10 years is putting words into my mouth, which I do not appreciate. I was heart broken in 2003 and I have beenupset by the Cubs many times since then, but I remain a fan and a real/true fan at that. Please don’t think or believe that just because I am a part of this campaign that I am some fair weather fan. I go to games inSeptember when the Cubs our 18 games out and other people have stopped watching and I am there to actually watch the game not just to get drunk. To think that I am not a true fan is insulting to me, I have been ridiculed for years and even threatened a couple of time (that is what you get for wearing Cubs apparel in St. Louis). During the 2013 Cubs convention Tom Ricketts said that the Cubs are committed to a World Series Championship which is the true commitment that I see in this campaign and as a real Cubs fan I still have hope and I believe that is will happen and with the proper moves it can happen soon. Thank you for your time.
A Committed Fan,
Jeffrey Galbraith
While we are often snarky and sarcastic here at LOHO, we are never intentionally mean-spirited. Please make sure your comments reflect that.
Then he added…
P.S. Why haven’t we seen Tony Campana at spring training this year?
I clicked in immediately because I knew you’d have ‘sumpin’ to say.
Oh…how couldn’t I say anything.
The fact that this guy is defending himself like this tells me he isn’t quite what he says he is. Human nature. It’s a typical type of defense when someone isn’t quite who they try to pass themselves off as.
I could be wrong, but in my experience, it is usually the truth.
What an idiotic thing to say.
Dude has a point, but the problem is that the way the campaign appeared to be announced made it seem too much like these people would be made up or that their stories would be slanted in such a way as to suit the Rickett’s needs. His stories remind me that my sister suffered with the Angels from 1966 until they finally won the World Series. She was hassled countless times when she wore her Angels gear to ball games,and other fans(Dodgers fans mostly) would indicate that she was stupid for rooting for the Angels) So I can see both sides, and with the world being viral now, any blowback for the people who chose to let the Cubs use their names will be pretty quick and ugly…
Welcome to the sewer that is the internet.
And knowing how busy Julie is, the fact he thanked her for her time is notable.
I’m a jerk. I never thank Julie for any of her time.
“If the Cubs want to save themselves a lot of money, they should get a bunch of real fans, the ones who have been in a state of perpetual rage for the last 10 years over what’s happened to this team, in a room and have them come up with an ad campaign. ”
Who would want to see/hear the vile bitterness that the group you suggest would create?
Imagine 10 Doc’s in a room.
I am the son of a teamster and an ex-Marine and my vocabulary would probably not cover the results.
The guys running the Cubies are smarter than that.
I’m pretty sure if you put 10 of me in a room, a black hole would form.
Dear Jeffrey,
I’m just wondering how you were compensated for the use of your likeness in this ad campaign. Julie has been totally transparent about her relationship with those who would look to sell us something through the use of a personalized narrative. It’s pretty easy for you to hide behind the “true fan” banner when you’ve probably been compensated quite well for having your name and likeness attached to the 2013 version of the ball club. The thing is, you agreed to this. Your story ceased to be just your once you let the marketing goons use it to sell tickets to see a lousy ball team. Sorry if you don’t like the attention that comes with whatever your payout was, but this is your cross to bear now.
Not questioning your real fanhood, just wondering what it pays when you sell it to ad agencies.
With warm regards,
J
I don’t have any issues with any of the fans featured in the ads as, obviously, I don’t know them. My issue in the post below was with the Cubs and their continually stupid marketing campaigns. Just want to make that clear.
Back peddle much? #pawned
My only beef with Jeff at this point is he went full on, stage 3 whiner complete with an email explaining how Cards fans made his “feel bad” come back.
There’s plenty of other things in the world to get all worked up over and he picked the fact that someone is questioning the taste of a marketing campaign that uses a picture of his family’s backside. The fact that Jeff responded in such a way suggests to me that he didn’t consider everything downstream from photos on the field at Wrigley.
Welcome to showbiz. What did you expect would happen when you signed over rights to your story for the proverbial 30 silver pieces?
I don’t know what letter you read but I don’t think it was his. He’s not speaking to anything more than defending himself as an actual, honest-to-goodness die-hard Cubs fan. Was he defensive? Yeah, he probably took the original write-up a little personally, even though Julie didn’t intend it to be nor come off as particularly personal. She didn’t even know him as she points out.
As for not considering “everything downstream,” if you mean he probably thought it was be fun to be part of a campaign to promote the team he loves, and naively didn’t ponder the fact that it would end up on the internet which is overwhelmingly populated with people who love nothing more than to take a shot at someone for no good reason other than their own smug self-satisfaction, then yeah, you’re probably right. A point for you. Yay.
You know, if I was a betting man, I’d guess your name was Mark. Chew on that for a while.
99.99% of the honest-to-goodness die-hard Cubs fans don’t score a payout for their misery either. Look, I’m sure Jeff is a great guy who would be really cool to hang out with and commiserate, but he took the exit to “Minor Celebrityville “. Rather than write a letter to a blogger who did what bloggers do, I’d suggest he seek out some sort of therapy to deal with a hypersensitivity that’s like freshly chummed water for the snarks.
The fact that he’s playing the marketer’s game and you’re lapping it right up in defense of an ad campaign that might as well be “Our SUV only rolls 100 times a year, but you love our brand!” has me questioning if current ownership/management is looking anywhere past the dollar signs and the pile of cash that is the looming Cubs Sports Network.
Because the commitment isn’t to winning, it’s to “Cubbie Feel Good”. The sooner that management gets the clue that we want to buy a winning product, not a shitty self help product, the better.
Jeff just stuck his neck out here in the crossfire and fell on his sword in the first round. You save that move until you know you have critical mass to take your place in the conversation. Again, a rookie mistake which seems par for the course from Mr. Committed Backside.
By the way, for someone getting all metasnarky about the internet on the internet, you might want to check the skinny on your jeans. 3 irony points for you Brony.
“Crossfire.” Jesus. I’d guess your name was Carl Sherburne.
Look guys, I put up Jeff’s response for two reasons: 1) because I don’t believe that anyone, including me, is above fair comment on any given subject. 2) Because I wanted to make it clear that my issues aren’t with anyone featured in the ads, who I admittedly don’t know, but with the Cubs and the kind of fans they repeatedly choose to celebrate. Oh, and I guess with their continually ridiculous marketing ploys.
If you want to call that backpeddling, so be it. If I had to write the same blog post after hearing from Jeff, I would write it exactly the same way and I stand by everything I wrote. Perhaps I would add a sentence saying that I didn’t mean to call anyone out personally, because I didn’t. Well, other than Tom Ricketts and whoever came up with this stupid campaign.
Wow!
The season needs to hurry up and get here.
Some of us seem to be a bit edgy.
More Cubbie aplomb, please.
PSYCHE!!!
Hell!
Snark away!
Z is pitching for Venezuela, and has pitched 2 innings of no hit baseball…
Z finally gives up a hit in the 4th…