Houston partner Chip Babcock was featured in a Best American Baseball Experts Society profile about his baseball memories and ties to Texas Rangers broadcaster Eric Nadel.
The article notes: “Chip has earned a reputation as one of the nation’s top litigators and has garnered many awards from many distinguished trial groups along the way. There are likely more achievements to come as he continues to practice full-time, but the interesting storyline to me is that despite all of his success in a notoriously adversarial profession, Chip remains a down-to-earth, hail-fellow-well-met, in the truest sense of the terms. That is exceedingly rare in the modern world of Rambo litigation.”
“Despite all of his success in a notoriously adversarial profession, Chip remains a down-to-earth, hail-fellow-well-met, in the truest sense of the terms.”
There is also a section featuring the following Q&A with Chip:
- Favorite Team: Red Sox since 1967
- Traitor? Yes. Dodgers 1949-1967
- Earliest Baseball memory: At Ebbets Field in Brooklyn where my dad allowed me to get a hot dog by myself at age 5. (Wouldn’t happen today in New York I don’t think). I saw Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo and Don Newcombe play from my grandfather’s box seats on the third base line. Hilda Chester, a legendary Brooklyn Dodgers fan, would ring cow bells during the game to the great annoyance of my grandfather who she named “the grouch”.
- Greatest Baseball Memory: The Hall of Fame game in Cooperstown between the Rangers and Kansas City Royals the year Nolan and George Brett were inducted. Rangers were treating it like the exhibition game that it was and put reserve catcher Geoff Zahn in right field where he made friends with the well served fans in the bleachers. When Zahn, a left handed hitter, came to bat the bleachers started roaring “Call Your Shot”. “Call Your Shot”. Zahn calmly asked for time and stepped out of the box and pointed his bat toward right center. The very next pitch he hit out to right center. Bleachers went wild. After the game the Kansas City pitcher was asked whether he grooved one to Geoff and he denied it, claiming that Zahn hit a nasty slider.
- Worst Baseball Memory: Bill Buckner, 1986 World Series.
- Preference For Listening To Game: Radio, especially when my friend, college classmate and fraternity brother Eric Nadel is calling the game. I hired Eric for his first broadcasting job at WBRU in Providence, Rhode Island.
- Profession and If I Could Call My Shot: Attorney. Is this like a “Damn Yankees” scenario where I have to make a deal with the Devil? In any event, I wouldn’t do it. First, I love my job, but second when you play the game or work in it that’s your work, you can’t really sit back and enjoy it. I felt that when I was a sportswriter before law school. When it’s your job sometimes the romance of the game disappears.
To read the full profile, see “The Road to the Hall of Fame…” on the B.A.B.E.S. – Homeplate webpage.