[CQ-Contest] Online Scoreboards

[Jim Brown]

On 7/19/2023 6:27 PM, Barry Jacobson wrote:
> I remember as a kid in Wrigley Field they had separate cards with each
> number and they would manually stick them in the windows of the scoreboard
> to display the score, as it changed. It was outage proof.

I designed two generations of sound systems for the Cubs, the second as 
they remodeled their park to install lights. I remember getting a tour 
of the scoreboard sometime in the late '70s or early '80s.  The Cubs 
were good to me -- they paid my invoices promptly, were loyal, and gave 
me the opportunity to buy tickets for playoff games. My young son took 
advantage of my roaming pass to bug players for autographs on the field 
during warmup.

When Pete Rose was pursuing a home run record, he had a couple of 
chances to do it at Wrigley Field, and I was hired to make sure that 
sound worked for his press conferences after the game. I remember a 
rainy Saturday afternoon game -- at the same time, I was responsible for 
the Chicago Jazz Festival, five miles away, and my guys made it happen 
while I sat choice seats behind home plate watching Pete's at bats.

I never met Pete, but my impression of him, watching him deal with the 
press, is that he was a class act. Never saw him get snarly, never 
anything but respectful. Many years later, I read a couple of his bios.

Oh, yeah -- I also had the wonderful opportunity of hanging out in the 
press box with jazz violin legend (and composer of one of my favorite 
Standards of the Great American Songbook, "Detour Ahead"). The legendary 
Chicago jazz promoter Joe Segal, spent a lot of summers in the 
bleachers, and arranged for Dizzy Gillespie to play the Anthem there one 
day. I made a point of being there to see that the sound was right!

73, Jim K9YC