Scoreboard!

I am a construction lawyer. I have been for over 26 years now. In 2007, I got involved with the American Bar Association Forum on Construction Law, first going to their meetings as just a general attendee before getting involved in leadership. In the fall of 2026, I will become the chair of that organization. It's a pretty big deal in my world. 

As chair, one of the "perks" I get is that I get to select the cities where our group will hold its thrice-yearly meetings. The first city I am selecting will be to host a meeting in January/February of 2027. For that city selection process, I first traveled to San Francisco. 

In doing these site visits, I was asked to provide my hobbies, my favorite things to do or read, my favorite candy, etc. I was sure to list that I am a baseball fan and that I collect baseball cards. 

One of the hotels I was visiting really paid attention, because the sales rep bought a blaster of Bowman for me to rip. I didn't get much in the blaster, generally, but I did get a couple of Brewers 1st Bowman Chrome cards:

Yophery Rodriguez is a 19-year-old outfielder whom the Brewers signed out of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic in 2023. He played in the complex league there and showed a good eye generally (41 BB vs. 40 Ks in 224 PA). He played in the Carolina League last year at the age of 18 and did pretty well.

Unfortunately, earlier this year, the Brewers needed pitching and traded with the Red Sox to acquire Quinn Priester. Rodriguez was the first to be sent to the Sox in that trade. He was later followed by John Holobetz, a 5th round pick last year from Old Dominion. The trade was capped off last night when Boston used the 33rd pick in the draft that it obtained from Milwaukee to select Marcus Phillips from the University of Tennessee. 

Priester has been excellent in his past 12 starts--once he got used to the Brewers pitching lab work. He's put up a 1.07 WHIP and a 2.76 ERA in those starts, walking just 6% of the batters in that time (16 walks and 54 hits in 65-1/3 innings). What's really nice is that with Brandon Woodruff returning, Priester can be a 4th or 5th starter for the Brewers (depending on where you slot Jose Quintana into that rotation). 

The other card I needed is this one of Bishop Letson. Letson was an 11th round pick in 2023 from Floyd Central High School in Indiana. The Brewers gave him a signing bonus of $482,600 to walk away from his commitment to play for Purdue. Letson has been sidelined for a lot of 2025 thanks to a sore shoulder, which is never a good thing. He had been pitching well before the injury this year, striking out 30 in 27 innings and giving up just 16 hits and no homers against 7 walks in that time. No word on when he'll be back. 

The highlight of the trip, however, starts with the out-of-town scoreboard in Oracle Park. We were in the Gotham Club in right field. It's a bar/restaurant for which you have to get access somehow through membership. You can be a member if you played for the Giants, but otherwise there is a wait list to join. I think our access came through the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. 

The club is located inside the right-field wall behind the out-of-town scoreboard under Levi's Landing:

"There's a high drive to left by Castellanos..."

In any event, while in the Club, we watched as the scoreboard workers would fly around behind the wall changing out the numbers when teams scored. The Braves were getting abused by the Athletics that night--lost 10-1, I think. I got to put up the 1 and the 0 when the score changed:

The other highlight was getting to watch a Kyle Schwarber homerun splash down through the window looking out over McCovey Cove:

This was the second baseball game I've been to this year, and neither of them was in Atlanta. More on that first game I went to the next time I post.