March 11, 2025 • 32 mins
Roger welcomes Talmage Boston, a lawyer, historian, and author of “How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents,” which was released in April of last year.
They explore Boston’s top 8 presidents, the leadership lessons they teach Americans — especially young Americans developing their leadership characteristics, and the importance of optimism, unification, and the ability of a president to connect with the American people. Plus, they discuss how baseball history is intertwined with American history and how it shapes the American zeitgeist.
Talmage Boston is a partner at the Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton law firm specializing in trial and appellate commercial litigation. He’s one of the most recognized and awarded lawyers in Texas and is the only lawyer to receive a “Presidential Citation” from eight different presidents of the State Bar of Texas for outstanding service to the State Bar. As a historian and author, his combined legal knowledge and fascination with all things American history have contributed to a catalog of books on the subjects of law, American history and baseball.
The Liberty + Leadership Podcast is hosted by TFAS president Roger Ream and produced by Podville Media. If you have a comment or question for the show, please email us at podcast@TFAS.org. To support TFAS and its mission, please visit TFAS.org/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast,
a conversation with TFAS alumni,faculty and friends who are
making an impact.
Today I'm your host, roger Ream.
Today I'm joined by author,historian and lawyer Talmadge
Boston.
Talmadge is a partner at theShackleford Bowen, mckinley and
(00:23):
Norton law firm and specializesin trial and appellate
commercial litigation.
He is one of the mostrecognized and awarded lawyers
in Texas and is the only lawyerto receive a presidential
citation from eight differentpresidents of the State Bar of
Texas for outstanding service.
As a historian and author, hiscombined legal knowledge and his
(00:46):
fascination with all thingsAmerican history have
contributed to a catalog ofbooks on the subjects of law,
american history and baseball.
His latest book, which waspublished by the Post Hill Press
in April of last year, is howthe Best Did it Leadership
Lessons from Our Top Presidents.
I'm delighted that Talmadgewill be speaking at TFAS on
(01:09):
March 19th to our Washingtonsemester students and our alumni
, where he'll have the chance toshare some of the leadership
lessons he has learned fromthese eight presidents.
Talmadge, thank you for joiningme today.
It's my honor to be on yourshow.
Roger Talmadge, thank you forjoining me today.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's my honor to be on your show.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Roger, let me ask you first for a bit of background.
You've had a very successfulcareer in the law in Texas.
You've had a parallel careergoing as a historian I would say
an acclaimed historian now,having written books on baseball
and the presidents.
First of all, what sparked yourinterest in the law?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, I had an uncle who was a very prominent lawyer
in Houston, who spent his careerworking with Leon Jaworski at
his firm, who was veryinstrumental in my desire
growing up to become a lawyer.
My heroes as a child growing upwere Abraham Lincoln and
Atticus Finch and TequilaMockingbird, and of course both
of them were great courtroomlawyers, and so that's what I
(02:05):
wanted to be.
I was a big high school debaterand always enjoyed public
speaking.
I always enjoyed argument, realintellectual exercise with
somebody smart on the other side, and so it just came naturally
as a career and I got out of lawschool 46 years ago.
University of Texas Law School,came to Dallas, grabbed Ben now
(02:26):
for 46 years and I'm still apracticing lawyer handling
lawsuits, handling arbitrationmatters, so forth business
litigation.
But the vocations of being alawyer and a historian I mean
both of us do a lot of writingto promote your books.
Obviously you do a lot ofspeaking.
There's a lot of thoughtfulanalysis that goes into being
able to frame your books.
Obviously, you do a lot ofspeaking.
There's a lot of thoughtfulanalysis that goes into being
(02:47):
able to frame your arguments andthen make the argument itself.
So a lot of overlap in theskill sets needed to be
successful in both lines of work, and certainly being a
historian has given me a leg upin my platform as a lawyer, and
I like to think that thediscipline of the law has been
instrumental to my being able towrite good history books.
(03:11):
I'm also a contributingcolumnist for the Dallas Morning
News and being able to makeop-ed pitches on a wide variety
of issues, most of them tied topresidential history, but not
all of them.
I had a piece on President'sDay talking about the most
important traits of PresidentsGeorge Washington and Abraham
Lincoln and wishing that there'sa way in the world that
(03:32):
President Trump might decidethat he wanted to follow in
their footsteps and aspire touse their traits for the greater
good.
We can always dream.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I know your interest in history started when you were
young, but when did it become apassion that drove you to write
about it?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I first started writing for a publication in
1991, and I think everybody isusually looking for an outlet
for your creativity.
I could not play a musicalinstrument.
I was not an artist who coulddraw great pictures.
I've always enjoyed singing,but that's just singing somebody
else's music.
So writing really is the outletfor my creativity and I've
(04:13):
always enjoyed teaching andsharing information and having
good conversations with smartpeople, and so all those factors
led to wanting to publish mythoughts as a historian whether
in newspapers.
I've written over 100 piecesfor the Dallas Boy News and over
(04:33):
60 for the Dallas BusinessJournal and several for the
Texas Bar Journal, who I was onthe board of editors for years.
So the main thing is it's justan outlet for my creativity and
people seem to respond favorablyand it does give me a bigger
platform for public speaking,for being hired as a lawyer, so
forth.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
That's why there's so many reasons why it was so
appealing to me Well before wedig deeper into your latest book
, how the Best Did it, I didwant to ask you kind of about
your approach to it.
Do you set aside a particulartime of day where you do your
writing and your research?
These books you write seem tome require a lot of deep dive
research into them to write themthe books on baseball, the
(05:14):
books on presidents.
But just a little briefoverview of how you approach
that I think might beinteresting.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, I've written five books and each of them
basically takes about two years.
Yeah, I've written five booksand each of them basically takes
about two years.
And my approach is you've got tomaintain a schedule and a
discipline, and particularlywhen you have a full-time job
like being a lawyer.
So the way that I've been ableto do it is I'm typically asleep
by 8.30 pm andI typically wakeup at 4 am and I read my Dallas
(05:41):
Boy News and my Wall StreetJournal and then I've got three
and a half hours of totalsolitude where I do the research
and do the writing and theediting and the whole process.
And if you have three and ahalf hours of total solitude
every day, it's amazing what youcan get done.
I mean, it's to the sacrifice,obviously, of a nightlife.
(06:01):
I'm not a golfer, I'm not ahunter, I'm not a fisherman, we
don't travel the world.
So you have to decide,obviously, how are you going to
spend your time and since I getso much enjoyment out of writing
for publication and speaking inconnection with it, I'm happy
to give off these other pursuitsthat so many other people enjoy
so that I have plenty of timeto be able to do the research
(06:23):
and the writing.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
In your latest book, how the Best Did it Leadership
Lessons from Our Top Presidents.
You identify leadership traitsof eight presidents, and I loved
your opening quotation fromDwight Eisenhower, when you
quote him as writing.
The one quality that can bedeveloped by studious reflection
and practice is the leadershipof men.
(06:45):
And could you talk about thecriteria used to identify which
presidents to include in yourbook?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I've selected who I believe to be our eight greatest
presidents, thinking thatthey've got more to teach
readers than anybody else in theway of effective leadership.
For the most part, the eight Ichose are tied to the C-SPAN
presidential ranking poll.
The television network C-SPAN.
Every time one president leavesthe White House and another one
(07:14):
comes in a changing of theguard, they do a poll of the 150
leading historians in thecountry to rank the presidents
from best to worst on the basisof 10 presidential leadership
traits, and people can GoogleC-SPAN presidential ranking
polls and read all about them.
But in the last two polls 2017,when Obama left and Trump came
(07:38):
in, and 2021, when Trump wentout and Biden came in the
results of the poll forPresidents number one through
nine in the ranking wereidentical Number one Lincoln.
Two Washington.
Three Franklin Roosevelt.
Four Theodore Roosevelt.
Five Eisenhower.
Six Truman.
Seven Jefferson.
(07:58):
Eight Kennedy.
Nine Reagan.
So I took those nine and Iremoved Truman.
I think he's overrated.
He got us into Korea and had noidea how to get us out.
He had no idea how to deal withMcCarthyism.
He gets credit for dropping theA-bombs and bringing a prompt
conclusion to World War II, whenin fact he really had no other
choice.
(08:18):
Plan B was to invade Japan,which would have resulted in the
loss of hundreds of thousands,if not millions, of lives.
I think Truman is overrated.
I think Reagan's underrated.
I move him up a notch to makehim in the top eight.
Since, particularly the bookcame out last April 2024, known
as the presidential electionyear, I want to sell my books to
(08:39):
both Democrats and Republicans.
So in the modern era, I havetwo great Democratic presidents
FDR and John F Kennedy and twogreat Republican presidents
Dwight Eisenhower and RonaldReagan.
And then, third and finally,with all the polarization that
we had in 2024, we have now in2025, I want Democrats to read
(09:01):
and recognize that we've hadgreat Republican presidents, and
I want Republicans to read andrecognize that we've had great
Democratic presidents.
And let's evaluate greatness onthe basis of what it is, as
opposed to party alignment.
And so it's my small way oftrying to break down these
barriers that people create tomake judgments based on factors
(09:25):
that I don't think are importantin terms of which political
party a particular president wasa member of.
So that was my process.
The book is what I call a studyin applied history, and that is
it's one thing to read and enjoyhistory.
It's something else to read itwith the idea of how can I apply
this to my daily living.
(09:45):
And John Avalon wrote the fullword.
He's a wonderful presidentialhistorian.
His books are Applied History,one about Washington's farewell
address, the other aboutLincoln's final days and his
plans to reunite the country.
And John was the one who reallyinspired me to pursue this
whole angle on applied history.
And so at the end of each of myeight chapters on the eight
(10:08):
presidents, I have a sectioncalled Personal Application for
the reader to ask him or herselfhow am I doing in these traits
that caused Washington to begreat, or Jefferson to be great,
or the rest of the eight?
So I want the book to be morethan just a fun read.
I want it to be an interactiveexperience so that people,
(10:28):
hopefully, can actually think ofways to improve their efforts,
to become better leaders.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, that's why I'm so thrilled that we have you
coming in March to speak to ourstudents in our spring semester
program and our alumni who areinviting as well, because they
need to hear that and applythese lessons to become
courageous leaders.
I wonder, after what you justsaid when you travel and give
talks about your book, do youget pushback from people in the
(10:55):
audience who, either forpartisan reasons or other
reasons, are upset that you leftsomeone out or you included
someone?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
From time to time.
There's been a few questions.
Some people say why isn'tLyndon Johnson in your top eight
?
I say, on the one hand, lyndonJohnson was a great president in
the area of civil rights,probably second only to Abraham
Lincoln as far as that goes.
But on the other hand, he hadVietnam, a colossal foreign
policy disaster the only war weever lost so debilitating to him
(11:26):
that he couldn't even run foranother term.
And Vietnam, on the one hand,was a morass that nobody could
understand at the outset.
So I'm not being critical ofthe fact that he necessarily
mishandled it, but what I amvery critical is how many times
he lied to the American peopleabout what was going on in
Vietnam, and that, to me, isinexcusable, and I could never
(11:53):
elevate somebody into my top agewho had such a history of lying
to the American people asJohnson did on Vietnam.
Some people have wondered whydon't I have Obama?
In fact, in the most recentC-SPAN poll, obama finished 10th
.
Obviously, now, with Bidengoing out and Trump coming in,
there's going to be a 2025 poll.
I'd be surprised if Obama staysin the top 10.
And Harry Truman famously saidit takes 50 years for the dust
(12:15):
to settle in terms of reallybeing in a position to evaluate
a president.
I think, as time goes by, Idon't know what people could
think about in terms of thesuccess of the Obama presidency
in the area of foreign policy orin domestic policy.
Some people think it was greatwith the Affordable Care Act,
but obviously that's a mixed bag, so I'd be surprised if Obama
(12:36):
stays in the top 10.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I take it it's a disadvantage if you served in
the White House and didn't facea crisis.
I mean, you know Lincoln andWashington and Franklin
Roosevelt had wars to fight ormajor crises to deal with and
you know I've always had a highopinion of Kelvin Coolidge and
Grover Cleveland, but theyaren't going to make a top 10
list, probably because theydidn't face the kind of severe
(13:00):
crisis that some of these othersfaced.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
The exception out of the top eight.
I think you could look at sevenof the eight as having faced a
crisis successfully, but thatwas not true of Theodore
Roosevelt and Roosevelt's rightnumber four.
He's on Mount Rushmore.
The main reason for his beingperceived as such a highly
ranked president is he expandedthe presidency.
(13:24):
Whether we're talking aboutnational presidency, whether
we're talking about nationalparks, whether we're talking
about the Panama Canal, whetherwe're talking about trust
busting, whether we're talkingabout him getting involved in
big national labor disputes likethe big coal strike that he
resolved, he was always thinkingwhat needed to be done that
Congress is not doing, and hewas very aggressive about the
(13:45):
use of executive orders.
But for the most part, thethings where he grew the
presidency had happy endings andgreat results, and so it is
possible to be recognized andappreciated as being a great
president without a crisis.
But certainly, to your point,if you do have a major crisis
during your presidency and yousucceed in handling it well,
(14:08):
that is going to increase thelikelihood that you'll have an
enhanced stature and legacy as apresidency, because such big
things were happening duringyour years.
And for Franklin Roosevelt, forexample our third-ranked
president, the only guy who gotelected four times to have
back-to-back crises of the GreatDepression and then World War
(14:30):
II, and his handling of both iswhat causes him to be ranked
number three.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Well, let's talk about some of the chapters in
your book and the leadershiptraits you feature.
I thought I might ask you knowto talk a little bit first about
George Washington, yourlead-off chapter, and the way
you characterize this leadershiphe showed.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Well, as I said, historians rank Washington
number two, obviously being ourfirst president.
Nobody knew how this was goingto work.
The new nation was very fragileand to get things off to a very
good start, I mean, it helpedthat Washington was his beloved
hero, who had led theContinental Army to victory in
(15:10):
the Revolutionary War againstgreat odds, an eight-year war
twice as long as the Conventionas chairman, which led to the
supreme law of the land and itsratification.
But then stepping in as ourfirst president, knowing how
(15:32):
fragile things were, his servingboth as conscience in chief,
setting this incredibly highstandard for integrity and
having total credibility ineverything he said, never any
suggestion of any ulteriormotives to anything he did, and
his also commitment to being theunifier in chief.
(15:55):
And during the eight years, ofcourse, adams and Hamilton were
forming the Federalist Party and, on the other hand, jefferson
and Madison, what was thencalled the Republican Party that
today has evolved into theDemocratic Party.
But with each passing week,more and more division.
And Washington, who neveradmitted that he wanted to be a
(16:16):
member of a political party,thought his job was to keep
these two parties fromdestroying each other.
And he did.
And he had sound judgment.
Brilliant people on both sideswith strong opinions as to why
they disagreed with one another,and Washington, as the ultimate
decider on these disputedissues, had amazingly consistent
(16:40):
sound judgment.
He, like Eisenhower, when histerm was up, wanted to give a
farewell address from hisperspective, and his main thrust
was about avoid foreignentanglements but also stay away
from factional divisions, slashpolarization.
So just an unbelievably wiseleader who kept the country
(17:05):
together at a time.
There's no doubt that no oneelse was close to having his
skill set among those foundersto be able to lead the country
and get it off to such a greatstart.
So Washington certainly is verydeserving of his high ranking
for getting things off to thegreat start.
Here we are still in place andhe's still our hero, and we
(17:28):
still celebrate President's Dayand recognize how important he
was and his longstandingcontribution to the American
dream and the American way oflife.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And we've had a number of consecutive elections
recently where we've talkedabout the need for a unifier
without the person we'reelecting really doing a lot to
unify us.
It seems to me that's thetraits of Washington are
particularly needed today in ourcountry and have been needed
for a number of years.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, most of these great presidents were unifiers.
They all were elected to asecond term, except for Kennedy,
who got shot.
If he had not been shot, I feelsure he would have won a second
term.
And so when you're winningthese elections handily, that's
because you are connecting withthe people, the great American
middle.
You're not couching yourpolicies and favorites toward
(18:19):
either the extreme right or theextreme left.
You're trying to get the readon where the people are and
pursuing policies in accordancewith it.
And so to be a successfulpresident, you have to be a
unifier.
I mean, for example, whenReagan was elected, originally
people were like, oh, he's suchan extreme conservative, et
cetera, et cetera.
And yet when he ran, he wassuch a great communicator.
(18:42):
Of course, coming off thedisastrous presidency of Jimmy
Carter, all of a sudden therewere Reagan Democrats and he won
44 out of the 50 states becausepeople liked his approach to
dealing with the Cold War,people liked his approach to
dealing with an economy that wasin decline.
And so the great presidentshave their finger on the pulse
(19:06):
of the sizable majority of theAmerican people and know how to
create policies that are goingto resonate with them and, as we
know, many times the Americanpeople are not exactly in the
right.
They need a great leader tomove the needle on their public
opinion to where they see thelight.
I mean, for example, franklinRoosevelt.
In the late 30s and early 40smost Americans were
(19:29):
isolationists.
Hitler's taking over Europe.
Churchill can't possibly defeathim.
Churchill's begging FDR andAmerica to help join the war
effort or we're never going tobeat this guy, hitler.
And most Americans say no, wedon't want to go halfway around
the world and fight a war.
We did that 20 years ago inWorld War I.
We don't want to do that again.
And yet FDR knew this Hitlerguy was for real and he was
(19:51):
going to take over Europe andAsia and Africa and Australia in
the high seas and he'd becoming at us.
And so he saw his job to getthe American people out of being
stuck in isolationism andrecognizing the need for America
to play a strong role in theworld to prevent a crazy
dictator like Hitler from takingover.
(20:12):
And so that's part of thepresidential job is the people
are not always right.
They need guidance from time totime and you reorient them
where they need to be in thebest interests of the country.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
One thing about your book that resonated with me is
the fact that you don't presentthese eight presidents as
totally perfect figures.
You touch on flaws that theyhad as well as these great
leadership characteristics, andI think that's important for
young people especially, tounderstand that they can develop
leadership characteristicswhile still having weaknesses.
(20:50):
Let me ask you something, sinceyou touched on Ronald Reagan.
You talked about his optimismjust now and you write about it
in the book, and that seems likea characteristic today that is
lacking in many of thecandidates for office.
They get up and talk about howbad things are in our country
and how we're going downhill,and we need to.
You know it's not just Trump'smake America great again, but
(21:11):
there's a lot of negativism,from our leaders, I think, and
from our candidates.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Well, you saw America as a shining city on the hill.
I mean, for that matter, Ithink Trump does too.
That's not to say that Trumphas the eloquence of Reagan or
the capacity to attract thesubstantial majority of the
American people to support him,but Trump has a vision that
things are going to be fabulousas long as he's the leader, and
(21:38):
Reagan felt the same way abouthis expectations under his
leadership.
I mean, I think you're right.
I think, being able tosuccessfully lead any
organization or, in this case, anation you darn sure better
have a sense of optimism thatthings are going to get brighter
and that you are going to comeup with ways to make things
better.
If you didn't have thatperspective, you'd never get
(21:59):
elected.
People don't elect pessimists.
They elect people who theythink can actually do the job
and improve their situation, andthat's always the driving force
.
You always hear about howpeople vote their pocketbook.
Which presidential candidate isgoing to be the best for the
economy?
But obviously, in an everincreasingly dangerous world,
(22:20):
foreign policy becomes an issue.
We obviously want to live in asafe world, a stable world, a
peaceful world, and whichpresidential candidate seems
most likely to achieve thatresult?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Well, it's a great book and I encourage people to
buy it and read it.
I think it can help anyonebecome a better leader and, as
you would agree, I'm sure,leadership is something that
young people can developleadership traits by studying
the examples.
And what I love about yourbaseball books as well is
they're about people.
It's not just about a game,it's about the people who played
the game, and those books areI'll just mention 1939,
(22:57):
baseball's Turning Point andBaseball and the Baby Boomer a
History Commentary and Memoir.
I'm curious how you developedthat passion for baseball and
enough that you wrote thesebooks.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Well, my childhood was spent in Houston, and while
I was there was when MajorLeague Baseball came to Houston
in 1962.
When the Houston Colt 45sentered the National League and
three years later they wouldbecome the Astros and the
Astrodome would open.
I collected baseball cards.
I had a wonderful Little Leaguebaseball experience in Houston.
I come from a family of historylovers and the history of
(23:33):
baseball is better preservedthan the history of any other
sport, with the possibleexception of golf.
And so there were so many greatstories about Babe Ruth and Luke
Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and TedWilliams and Ty Cobb and the
opening of the Hall of Fame andthe creation of Little League
and the Negro Leagues and then,finally, jackie Robinson,
(23:54):
breaking the color barrier.
And, as you say, it's aboutpeople who did extraordinary
things, kind of like presidentswho do extraordinary things.
And many of them virtually allof them came from very humble
beginnings, poverty-stricken,and baseball caused them to
elevate and become nationalsports heroes, and those are
(24:14):
great stories.
And a lot of adversity wasovercome for them to get to
where they were and theyprovided so much joy and
pleasure for so many Americanpeople.
I mean, one of my favoritelines is Franklin Roosevelt
World War II comes along andpeople say lines is Franklin
Roosevelt?
World War II comes along andpeople say you got to cancel the
baseball season because allthese young ballplayers, they
(24:36):
need to be soldiers and that'swhere all of our attention needs
to be.
And Franklin Roosevelt says no,this war is going to be hard,
it's tough.
We need something that's goingto give the people at least some
measure of pleasure, and so I'mnot about to cancel the
baseball season.
Of course, many major leagueplayers did serve in the war and
they did have replacementplayers, for the most part that
(24:57):
filled out the Major Leaguerosters, but at least they kept
playing the games.
And of course, jackie Robinson'sstory is one of the greatest
stories in American history,whether you like sports or not.
And here in Texas, sports ornot.
And here in Texas, nolan Ryanis such a heroic figure pitched
27 years in the big leagues,seven no-hitters, career leader
(25:18):
in strikeouts and role model,good guy all around, family man.
So there's reasons to warm upto sports heroes Lou Gehrig, the
story of his consecutive gamestreak, and then all of a sudden
he gets hit with ALS and can'tplay anymore.
And they make the unforgettablemovie with Gary Cooper and
(25:40):
given the luckiest man on theface of the earth speech.
These are some of the greateststories in American history, so
it's fun to tell them, it's funto talk about them, and they
still bring people a lot of joy.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I hadn't realized that 1939 was that kind of
pivotal year where you mentionedit was the 100th anniversary of
baseball.
It was what.
The first year they televisedgames Little League was created.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
First year that every team was on the radio.
Hall of Fame opened right.
Hall of Fame opened.
Ted Williams, still the onlyrookie to lead the major leagues
in RBIs.
Bob Feller's first year to win20 games.
Red Barber's first year inBrooklyn in the Catburg seat.
Dimaggio's greatest year.
Historians think the 39 Yankeesare the greatest team of all
time.
So you put all these thingstogether all happening in one
(26:24):
year and it makes for a lot ofgreat stories.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, and you tell the story of Satchel Paige as
well, right, yeah, you know the.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Negro Leagues were on the lip of the cup and they
were playing off-seasonbarnstorming games against major
leaguers, and everybodyrealized that the
African-American ballplayerswere every bit as good, or in
many cases better, than thewhite ballplayers, and it was
just a matter of time.
It took World War II and arecognition that, my goodness,
if African-Americans can fightand die for their country,
(26:53):
shouldn't they be able to signbig league contracts and be able
to play Major League Baseball?
And that's why Ken Burns madehis big documentary, because
it's an American story.
It's integrated into the greatracial awakening civil rights
movement.
Such a rich history dealing withthe Depression and how it
impacted everything, includingbaseball, how wars impacted
(27:16):
baseball and everything else.
It's woven into the fabric ofAmerica and has been pretty much
ever since the Civil War.
I mean, it was really in theCivil War when it started to
spread, and in particular itspread in the prisoner of war
camps, where people are justsitting around with nothing to
do, and in particular, it spreadin the prisoner of war camps,
where people are just sittingaround with nothing to do.
And so they started playingbaseball against each other and
(27:36):
then, when the war's over, theyall went back to their different
parts of the country andstarted playing it in their
local communities and next thingyou know, teams are formed and
next thing you know, people aregetting paid if they're really
good players and selling ticketsand making money and it becomes
a business and it makes thenewspapers and it just becomes
the phenomenon that we celebrateas the national pastime, even
(27:56):
though we all know that the NFLand football has now passed it,
but it's still in the big threeup there, along with the NBA and
basketball.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Well, in your book on baseball and the baby boomer I
think you've gotten me just by ayear or two.
But I don't remember RogerMaris hitting 61 home runs in
1961, just barely too young toremember that but having the
name Roger and then getting hisbaseball card some years later,
a few years later I just I hadthis great love of Roger Maris.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
One of the best things that happened.
You know, roger Maris died atage 51 of cancer, which is sad.
So he's been gone quite a while.
And I have a friend who wasRoger Maris' best friend, andy
Strasberg, and he said that if Iwould send him a copy of that
book he would forward it on toRoger Maris' widow, pat Maris.
(28:49):
And he did, and I got thesweetest letter from Pat Maris
saying she thought I hadcaptured the essence of her late
husband and how much it meantto her.
And boy, that was a great day.
And then I had the chapter onCarl Ustremsky, and he's
notoriously reclusive.
I thought there's no way in theworld I'm ever going to meet
Karius Grunsky.
(29:10):
And lo and behold, he read thechapter and I spent a day with
him in Florida and walked aroundthe golf course with him.
He told me all kinds of goodstories and, as you say, it's a
book about people and if youtell their stories in the right
way it lifts them up, and itlifts the American people up,
because these are great stories.
I mean, he has the consummateoverachiever who wins the Triple
(29:33):
Crown and leads the ImpossibleDream, the 67 Red Sox, all the
way to the World Series against100-1 odds.
They lost 100 games the yearbefore.
It's one of the greateststories in baseball history and
the way he led that team and theway it electrified New England.
That really changed everythingthat ever since 1967, the Red
(29:54):
Sox have been such a focal point.
They've fallen out of favor inthe 50s and the early 60s
because they were just a losingteam.
Year after year after year andafter 67, the fascination and
the interest and the fan baseand everything took off and it's
still a huge deal in NewEngland every summer, red Sox
baseball.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Well, talmadge, I grew up in Milwaukee and was a
Braves fan, henry Aaron fan, andI have to just quickly mention
I serve on the US Postal ServiceCitizens Stamp Advisory
Committee and this past year wecame out with a Henry Aaron
stamp.
I lobbied unsuccessfully tohave him wearing a Milwaukee
Braves hat or a MilwaukeeBrewers hat, but he's in his
(30:35):
Atlanta hat.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I got to spend two days with Hank Aaron.
One of his managers inMilwaukee and then in Atlanta
was Bobby Bragan, who lived herein Fort Worth, and Bobby was a
real mentor to me, father figureto me and he had the Bobby
Braden Youth Foundation which Iwas actively involved with and
for two different banquets HankAaron came and I got to spend a
(30:56):
lot of time.
What a great guy.
Quiet but thoughtful, smart,high integrity, obviously
unbelievable baseball player whohad to deal with his own racial
issues to overcome, to get towhere he was.
But the story of Hank Uren isone of baseball's great stories.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Well, I think we're up against the clock here, but I
just again thank you forjoining me today and for your
book how the Best Did it.
It's available on Amazon,barnes, noble and hopefully in
bookstores near you, and I dohighly recommend it and look
forward to seeing you in Marchwhen you come up to speak to our
students.
Thank you very much, talmadge.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Well, I'm sure looking forward to it, roger,
and I sure appreciate youletting me do this podcast with
you.
Thank, you.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Thank you for listening to the Liberty and
Leadership Podcast.
If you have a comment orquestion, please drop us an
email at podcast at tfasorg, andbe sure to subscribe to the
show on your favorite podcastapp and leave a five-star review
.
Liberty and Leadership isproduced at Podville Media.
I'm your host, roger Ream, anduntil next time, show courage in
(32:09):
things, large and small.
Welcome to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast,
a conversation with TFAS alumni,faculty and friends who are
making an impact.
Today I'm your host, roger Ream.
Today I'm joined by author,historian and lawyer Talmadge
Boston.
Talmadge is a partner at theShackleford Bowen, mckinley and
(00:23):
Norton law firm and specializesin trial and appellate
commercial litigation.
He is one of the mostrecognized and awarded lawyers
in Texas and is the only lawyerto receive a presidential
citation from eight differentpresidents of the State Bar of
Texas for outstanding service.
As a historian and author, hiscombined legal knowledge and his
(00:46):
fascination with all thingsAmerican history have
contributed to a catalog ofbooks on the subjects of law,
american history and baseball.
His latest book, which waspublished by the Post Hill Press
in April of last year, is howthe Best Did it Leadership
Lessons from Our Top Presidents.
I'm delighted that Talmadgewill be speaking at TFAS on
(01:09):
March 19th to our Washingtonsemester students and our alumni
, where he'll have the chance toshare some of the leadership
lessons he has learned fromthese eight presidents.
Talmadge, thank you for joiningme today.
It's my honor to be on yourshow.
Roger Talmadge, thank you forjoining me today.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's my honor to be on your show.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Roger, let me ask you first for a bit of background.
You've had a very successfulcareer in the law in Texas.
You've had a parallel careergoing as a historian I would say
an acclaimed historian now,having written books on baseball
and the presidents.
First of all, what sparked yourinterest in the law?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, I had an uncle who was a very prominent lawyer
in Houston, who spent his careerworking with Leon Jaworski at
his firm, who was veryinstrumental in my desire
growing up to become a lawyer.
My heroes as a child growing upwere Abraham Lincoln and
Atticus Finch and TequilaMockingbird, and of course both
of them were great courtroomlawyers, and so that's what I
(02:05):
wanted to be.
I was a big high school debaterand always enjoyed public
speaking.
I always enjoyed argument, realintellectual exercise with
somebody smart on the other side, and so it just came naturally
as a career and I got out of lawschool 46 years ago.
University of Texas Law School,came to Dallas, grabbed Ben now
(02:26):
for 46 years and I'm still apracticing lawyer handling
lawsuits, handling arbitrationmatters, so forth business
litigation.
But the vocations of being alawyer and a historian I mean
both of us do a lot of writingto promote your books.
Obviously you do a lot ofspeaking.
There's a lot of thoughtfulanalysis that goes into being
able to frame your books.
Obviously, you do a lot ofspeaking.
There's a lot of thoughtfulanalysis that goes into being
(02:47):
able to frame your arguments andthen make the argument itself.
So a lot of overlap in theskill sets needed to be
successful in both lines of work, and certainly being a
historian has given me a leg upin my platform as a lawyer, and
I like to think that thediscipline of the law has been
instrumental to my being able towrite good history books.
(03:11):
I'm also a contributingcolumnist for the Dallas Morning
News and being able to makeop-ed pitches on a wide variety
of issues, most of them tied topresidential history, but not
all of them.
I had a piece on President'sDay talking about the most
important traits of PresidentsGeorge Washington and Abraham
Lincoln and wishing that there'sa way in the world that
(03:32):
President Trump might decidethat he wanted to follow in
their footsteps and aspire touse their traits for the greater
good.
We can always dream.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I know your interest in history started when you were
young, but when did it become apassion that drove you to write
about it?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I first started writing for a publication in
1991, and I think everybody isusually looking for an outlet
for your creativity.
I could not play a musicalinstrument.
I was not an artist who coulddraw great pictures.
I've always enjoyed singing,but that's just singing somebody
else's music.
So writing really is the outletfor my creativity and I've
(04:13):
always enjoyed teaching andsharing information and having
good conversations with smartpeople, and so all those factors
led to wanting to publish mythoughts as a historian whether
in newspapers.
I've written over 100 piecesfor the Dallas Boy News and over
(04:33):
60 for the Dallas BusinessJournal and several for the
Texas Bar Journal, who I was onthe board of editors for years.
So the main thing is it's justan outlet for my creativity and
people seem to respond favorablyand it does give me a bigger
platform for public speaking,for being hired as a lawyer, so
forth.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
That's why there's so many reasons why it was so
appealing to me Well before wedig deeper into your latest book
, how the Best Did it, I didwant to ask you kind of about
your approach to it.
Do you set aside a particulartime of day where you do your
writing and your research?
These books you write seem tome require a lot of deep dive
research into them to write themthe books on baseball, the
(05:14):
books on presidents.
But just a little briefoverview of how you approach
that I think might beinteresting.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, I've written five books and each of them
basically takes about two years.
Yeah, I've written five booksand each of them basically takes
about two years.
And my approach is you've got tomaintain a schedule and a
discipline, and particularlywhen you have a full-time job
like being a lawyer.
So the way that I've been ableto do it is I'm typically asleep
by 8.30 pm andI typically wakeup at 4 am and I read my Dallas
(05:41):
Boy News and my Wall StreetJournal and then I've got three
and a half hours of totalsolitude where I do the research
and do the writing and theediting and the whole process.
And if you have three and ahalf hours of total solitude
every day, it's amazing what youcan get done.
I mean, it's to the sacrifice,obviously, of a nightlife.
(06:01):
I'm not a golfer, I'm not ahunter, I'm not a fisherman, we
don't travel the world.
So you have to decide,obviously, how are you going to
spend your time and since I getso much enjoyment out of writing
for publication and speaking inconnection with it, I'm happy
to give off these other pursuitsthat so many other people enjoy
so that I have plenty of timeto be able to do the research
(06:23):
and the writing.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
In your latest book, how the Best Did it Leadership
Lessons from Our Top Presidents.
You identify leadership traitsof eight presidents, and I loved
your opening quotation fromDwight Eisenhower, when you
quote him as writing.
The one quality that can bedeveloped by studious reflection
and practice is the leadershipof men.
(06:45):
And could you talk about thecriteria used to identify which
presidents to include in yourbook?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I've selected who I believe to be our eight greatest
presidents, thinking thatthey've got more to teach
readers than anybody else in theway of effective leadership.
For the most part, the eight Ichose are tied to the C-SPAN
presidential ranking poll.
The television network C-SPAN.
Every time one president leavesthe White House and another one
(07:14):
comes in a changing of theguard, they do a poll of the 150
leading historians in thecountry to rank the presidents
from best to worst on the basisof 10 presidential leadership
traits, and people can GoogleC-SPAN presidential ranking
polls and read all about them.
But in the last two polls 2017,when Obama left and Trump came
(07:38):
in, and 2021, when Trump wentout and Biden came in the
results of the poll forPresidents number one through
nine in the ranking wereidentical Number one Lincoln.
Two Washington.
Three Franklin Roosevelt.
Four Theodore Roosevelt.
Five Eisenhower.
Six Truman.
Seven Jefferson.
(07:58):
Eight Kennedy.
Nine Reagan.
So I took those nine and Iremoved Truman.
I think he's overrated.
He got us into Korea and had noidea how to get us out.
He had no idea how to deal withMcCarthyism.
He gets credit for dropping theA-bombs and bringing a prompt
conclusion to World War II, whenin fact he really had no other
choice.
(08:18):
Plan B was to invade Japan,which would have resulted in the
loss of hundreds of thousands,if not millions, of lives.
I think Truman is overrated.
I think Reagan's underrated.
I move him up a notch to makehim in the top eight.
Since, particularly the bookcame out last April 2024, known
as the presidential electionyear, I want to sell my books to
(08:39):
both Democrats and Republicans.
So in the modern era, I havetwo great Democratic presidents
FDR and John F Kennedy and twogreat Republican presidents
Dwight Eisenhower and RonaldReagan.
And then, third and finally,with all the polarization that
we had in 2024, we have now in2025, I want Democrats to read
(09:01):
and recognize that we've hadgreat Republican presidents, and
I want Republicans to read andrecognize that we've had great
Democratic presidents.
And let's evaluate greatness onthe basis of what it is, as
opposed to party alignment.
And so it's my small way oftrying to break down these
barriers that people create tomake judgments based on factors
(09:25):
that I don't think are importantin terms of which political
party a particular president wasa member of.
So that was my process.
The book is what I call a studyin applied history, and that is
it's one thing to read and enjoyhistory.
It's something else to read itwith the idea of how can I apply
this to my daily living.
(09:45):
And John Avalon wrote the fullword.
He's a wonderful presidentialhistorian.
His books are Applied History,one about Washington's farewell
address, the other aboutLincoln's final days and his
plans to reunite the country.
And John was the one who reallyinspired me to pursue this
whole angle on applied history.
And so at the end of each of myeight chapters on the eight
(10:08):
presidents, I have a sectioncalled Personal Application for
the reader to ask him or herselfhow am I doing in these traits
that caused Washington to begreat, or Jefferson to be great,
or the rest of the eight?
So I want the book to be morethan just a fun read.
I want it to be an interactiveexperience so that people,
(10:28):
hopefully, can actually think ofways to improve their efforts,
to become better leaders.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, that's why I'm so thrilled that we have you
coming in March to speak to ourstudents in our spring semester
program and our alumni who areinviting as well, because they
need to hear that and applythese lessons to become
courageous leaders.
I wonder, after what you justsaid when you travel and give
talks about your book, do youget pushback from people in the
(10:55):
audience who, either forpartisan reasons or other
reasons, are upset that you leftsomeone out or you included
someone?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
From time to time.
There's been a few questions.
Some people say why isn'tLyndon Johnson in your top eight
?
I say, on the one hand, lyndonJohnson was a great president in
the area of civil rights,probably second only to Abraham
Lincoln as far as that goes.
But on the other hand, he hadVietnam, a colossal foreign
policy disaster the only war weever lost so debilitating to him
(11:26):
that he couldn't even run foranother term.
And Vietnam, on the one hand,was a morass that nobody could
understand at the outset.
So I'm not being critical ofthe fact that he necessarily
mishandled it, but what I amvery critical is how many times
he lied to the American peopleabout what was going on in
Vietnam, and that, to me, isinexcusable, and I could never
(11:53):
elevate somebody into my top agewho had such a history of lying
to the American people asJohnson did on Vietnam.
Some people have wondered whydon't I have Obama?
In fact, in the most recentC-SPAN poll, obama finished 10th
.
Obviously, now, with Bidengoing out and Trump coming in,
there's going to be a 2025 poll.
I'd be surprised if Obama staysin the top 10.
And Harry Truman famously saidit takes 50 years for the dust
(12:15):
to settle in terms of reallybeing in a position to evaluate
a president.
I think, as time goes by, Idon't know what people could
think about in terms of thesuccess of the Obama presidency
in the area of foreign policy orin domestic policy.
Some people think it was greatwith the Affordable Care Act,
but obviously that's a mixed bag, so I'd be surprised if Obama
(12:36):
stays in the top 10.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I take it it's a disadvantage if you served in
the White House and didn't facea crisis.
I mean, you know Lincoln andWashington and Franklin
Roosevelt had wars to fight ormajor crises to deal with and
you know I've always had a highopinion of Kelvin Coolidge and
Grover Cleveland, but theyaren't going to make a top 10
list, probably because theydidn't face the kind of severe
(13:00):
crisis that some of these othersfaced.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
The exception out of the top eight.
I think you could look at sevenof the eight as having faced a
crisis successfully, but thatwas not true of Theodore
Roosevelt and Roosevelt's rightnumber four.
He's on Mount Rushmore.
The main reason for his beingperceived as such a highly
ranked president is he expandedthe presidency.
(13:24):
Whether we're talking aboutnational presidency, whether
we're talking about nationalparks, whether we're talking
about the Panama Canal, whetherwe're talking about trust
busting, whether we're talkingabout him getting involved in
big national labor disputes likethe big coal strike that he
resolved, he was always thinkingwhat needed to be done that
Congress is not doing, and hewas very aggressive about the
(13:45):
use of executive orders.
But for the most part, thethings where he grew the
presidency had happy endings andgreat results, and so it is
possible to be recognized andappreciated as being a great
president without a crisis.
But certainly, to your point,if you do have a major crisis
during your presidency and yousucceed in handling it well,
(14:08):
that is going to increase thelikelihood that you'll have an
enhanced stature and legacy as apresidency, because such big
things were happening duringyour years.
And for Franklin Roosevelt, forexample our third-ranked
president, the only guy who gotelected four times to have
back-to-back crises of the GreatDepression and then World War
(14:30):
II, and his handling of both iswhat causes him to be ranked
number three.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Well, let's talk about some of the chapters in
your book and the leadershiptraits you feature.
I thought I might ask you knowto talk a little bit first about
George Washington, yourlead-off chapter, and the way
you characterize this leadershiphe showed.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Well, as I said, historians rank Washington
number two, obviously being ourfirst president.
Nobody knew how this was goingto work.
The new nation was very fragileand to get things off to a very
good start, I mean, it helpedthat Washington was his beloved
hero, who had led theContinental Army to victory in
(15:10):
the Revolutionary War againstgreat odds, an eight-year war
twice as long as the Conventionas chairman, which led to the
supreme law of the land and itsratification.
But then stepping in as ourfirst president, knowing how
(15:32):
fragile things were, his servingboth as conscience in chief,
setting this incredibly highstandard for integrity and
having total credibility ineverything he said, never any
suggestion of any ulteriormotives to anything he did, and
his also commitment to being theunifier in chief.
(15:55):
And during the eight years, ofcourse, adams and Hamilton were
forming the Federalist Party and, on the other hand, jefferson
and Madison, what was thencalled the Republican Party that
today has evolved into theDemocratic Party.
But with each passing week,more and more division.
And Washington, who neveradmitted that he wanted to be a
(16:16):
member of a political party,thought his job was to keep
these two parties fromdestroying each other.
And he did.
And he had sound judgment.
Brilliant people on both sideswith strong opinions as to why
they disagreed with one another,and Washington, as the ultimate
decider on these disputedissues, had amazingly consistent
(16:40):
sound judgment.
He, like Eisenhower, when histerm was up, wanted to give a
farewell address from hisperspective, and his main thrust
was about avoid foreignentanglements but also stay away
from factional divisions, slashpolarization.
So just an unbelievably wiseleader who kept the country
(17:05):
together at a time.
There's no doubt that no oneelse was close to having his
skill set among those foundersto be able to lead the country
and get it off to such a greatstart.
So Washington certainly is verydeserving of his high ranking
for getting things off to thegreat start.
Here we are still in place andhe's still our hero, and we
(17:28):
still celebrate President's Dayand recognize how important he
was and his longstandingcontribution to the American
dream and the American way oflife.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And we've had a number of consecutive elections
recently where we've talkedabout the need for a unifier
without the person we'reelecting really doing a lot to
unify us.
It seems to me that's thetraits of Washington are
particularly needed today in ourcountry and have been needed
for a number of years.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, most of these great presidents were unifiers.
They all were elected to asecond term, except for Kennedy,
who got shot.
If he had not been shot, I feelsure he would have won a second
term.
And so when you're winningthese elections handily, that's
because you are connecting withthe people, the great American
middle.
You're not couching yourpolicies and favorites toward
(18:19):
either the extreme right or theextreme left.
You're trying to get the readon where the people are and
pursuing policies in accordancewith it.
And so to be a successfulpresident, you have to be a
unifier.
I mean, for example, whenReagan was elected, originally
people were like, oh, he's suchan extreme conservative, et
cetera, et cetera.
And yet when he ran, he wassuch a great communicator.
(18:42):
Of course, coming off thedisastrous presidency of Jimmy
Carter, all of a sudden therewere Reagan Democrats and he won
44 out of the 50 states becausepeople liked his approach to
dealing with the Cold War,people liked his approach to
dealing with an economy that wasin decline.
And so the great presidentshave their finger on the pulse
(19:06):
of the sizable majority of theAmerican people and know how to
create policies that are goingto resonate with them and, as we
know, many times the Americanpeople are not exactly in the
right.
They need a great leader tomove the needle on their public
opinion to where they see thelight.
I mean, for example, franklinRoosevelt.
In the late 30s and early 40smost Americans were
(19:29):
isolationists.
Hitler's taking over Europe.
Churchill can't possibly defeathim.
Churchill's begging FDR andAmerica to help join the war
effort or we're never going tobeat this guy, hitler.
And most Americans say no, wedon't want to go halfway around
the world and fight a war.
We did that 20 years ago inWorld War I.
We don't want to do that again.
And yet FDR knew this Hitlerguy was for real and he was
(19:51):
going to take over Europe andAsia and Africa and Australia in
the high seas and he'd becoming at us.
And so he saw his job to getthe American people out of being
stuck in isolationism andrecognizing the need for America
to play a strong role in theworld to prevent a crazy
dictator like Hitler from takingover.
(20:12):
And so that's part of thepresidential job is the people
are not always right.
They need guidance from time totime and you reorient them
where they need to be in thebest interests of the country.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
One thing about your book that resonated with me is
the fact that you don't presentthese eight presidents as
totally perfect figures.
You touch on flaws that theyhad as well as these great
leadership characteristics, andI think that's important for
young people especially, tounderstand that they can develop
leadership characteristicswhile still having weaknesses.
(20:50):
Let me ask you something, sinceyou touched on Ronald Reagan.
You talked about his optimismjust now and you write about it
in the book, and that seems likea characteristic today that is
lacking in many of thecandidates for office.
They get up and talk about howbad things are in our country
and how we're going downhill,and we need to.
You know it's not just Trump'smake America great again, but
(21:11):
there's a lot of negativism,from our leaders, I think, and
from our candidates.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Well, you saw America as a shining city on the hill.
I mean, for that matter, Ithink Trump does too.
That's not to say that Trumphas the eloquence of Reagan or
the capacity to attract thesubstantial majority of the
American people to support him,but Trump has a vision that
things are going to be fabulousas long as he's the leader, and
(21:38):
Reagan felt the same way abouthis expectations under his
leadership.
I mean, I think you're right.
I think, being able tosuccessfully lead any
organization or, in this case, anation you darn sure better
have a sense of optimism thatthings are going to get brighter
and that you are going to comeup with ways to make things
better.
If you didn't have thatperspective, you'd never get
(21:59):
elected.
People don't elect pessimists.
They elect people who theythink can actually do the job
and improve their situation, andthat's always the driving force
.
You always hear about howpeople vote their pocketbook.
Which presidential candidate isgoing to be the best for the
economy?
But obviously, in an everincreasingly dangerous world,
(22:20):
foreign policy becomes an issue.
We obviously want to live in asafe world, a stable world, a
peaceful world, and whichpresidential candidate seems
most likely to achieve thatresult?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Well, it's a great book and I encourage people to
buy it and read it.
I think it can help anyonebecome a better leader and, as
you would agree, I'm sure,leadership is something that
young people can developleadership traits by studying
the examples.
And what I love about yourbaseball books as well is
they're about people.
It's not just about a game,it's about the people who played
the game, and those books areI'll just mention 1939,
(22:57):
baseball's Turning Point andBaseball and the Baby Boomer a
History Commentary and Memoir.
I'm curious how you developedthat passion for baseball and
enough that you wrote thesebooks.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Well, my childhood was spent in Houston, and while
I was there was when MajorLeague Baseball came to Houston
in 1962.
When the Houston Colt 45sentered the National League and
three years later they wouldbecome the Astros and the
Astrodome would open.
I collected baseball cards.
I had a wonderful Little Leaguebaseball experience in Houston.
I come from a family of historylovers and the history of
(23:33):
baseball is better preservedthan the history of any other
sport, with the possibleexception of golf.
And so there were so many greatstories about Babe Ruth and Luke
Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and TedWilliams and Ty Cobb and the
opening of the Hall of Fame andthe creation of Little League
and the Negro Leagues and then,finally, jackie Robinson,
(23:54):
breaking the color barrier.
And, as you say, it's aboutpeople who did extraordinary
things, kind of like presidentswho do extraordinary things.
And many of them virtually allof them came from very humble
beginnings, poverty-stricken,and baseball caused them to
elevate and become nationalsports heroes, and those are
(24:14):
great stories.
And a lot of adversity wasovercome for them to get to
where they were and theyprovided so much joy and
pleasure for so many Americanpeople.
I mean, one of my favoritelines is Franklin Roosevelt
World War II comes along andpeople say lines is Franklin
Roosevelt?
World War II comes along andpeople say you got to cancel the
baseball season because allthese young ballplayers, they
(24:36):
need to be soldiers and that'swhere all of our attention needs
to be.
And Franklin Roosevelt says no,this war is going to be hard,
it's tough.
We need something that's goingto give the people at least some
measure of pleasure, and so I'mnot about to cancel the
baseball season.
Of course, many major leagueplayers did serve in the war and
they did have replacementplayers, for the most part that
(24:57):
filled out the Major Leaguerosters, but at least they kept
playing the games.
And of course, jackie Robinson'sstory is one of the greatest
stories in American history,whether you like sports or not.
And here in Texas, sports ornot.
And here in Texas, nolan Ryanis such a heroic figure pitched
27 years in the big leagues,seven no-hitters, career leader
(25:18):
in strikeouts and role model,good guy all around, family man.
So there's reasons to warm upto sports heroes Lou Gehrig, the
story of his consecutive gamestreak, and then all of a sudden
he gets hit with ALS and can'tplay anymore.
And they make the unforgettablemovie with Gary Cooper and
(25:40):
given the luckiest man on theface of the earth speech.
These are some of the greateststories in American history, so
it's fun to tell them, it's funto talk about them, and they
still bring people a lot of joy.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I hadn't realized that 1939 was that kind of
pivotal year where you mentionedit was the 100th anniversary of
baseball.
It was what.
The first year they televisedgames Little League was created.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
First year that every team was on the radio.
Hall of Fame opened right.
Hall of Fame opened.
Ted Williams, still the onlyrookie to lead the major leagues
in RBIs.
Bob Feller's first year to win20 games.
Red Barber's first year inBrooklyn in the Catburg seat.
Dimaggio's greatest year.
Historians think the 39 Yankeesare the greatest team of all
time.
So you put all these thingstogether all happening in one
(26:24):
year and it makes for a lot ofgreat stories.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, and you tell the story of Satchel Paige as
well, right, yeah, you know the.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Negro Leagues were on the lip of the cup and they
were playing off-seasonbarnstorming games against major
leaguers, and everybodyrealized that the
African-American ballplayerswere every bit as good, or in
many cases better, than thewhite ballplayers, and it was
just a matter of time.
It took World War II and arecognition that, my goodness,
if African-Americans can fightand die for their country,
(26:53):
shouldn't they be able to signbig league contracts and be able
to play Major League Baseball?
And that's why Ken Burns madehis big documentary, because
it's an American story.
It's integrated into the greatracial awakening civil rights
movement.
Such a rich history dealing withthe Depression and how it
impacted everything, includingbaseball, how wars impacted
(27:16):
baseball and everything else.
It's woven into the fabric ofAmerica and has been pretty much
ever since the Civil War.
I mean, it was really in theCivil War when it started to
spread, and in particular itspread in the prisoner of war
camps, where people are justsitting around with nothing to
do, and in particular, it spreadin the prisoner of war camps,
where people are just sittingaround with nothing to do.
And so they started playingbaseball against each other and
(27:36):
then, when the war's over, theyall went back to their different
parts of the country andstarted playing it in their
local communities and next thingyou know, teams are formed and
next thing you know, people aregetting paid if they're really
good players and selling ticketsand making money and it becomes
a business and it makes thenewspapers and it just becomes
the phenomenon that we celebrateas the national pastime, even
(27:56):
though we all know that the NFLand football has now passed it,
but it's still in the big threeup there, along with the NBA and
basketball.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Well, in your book on baseball and the baby boomer I
think you've gotten me just by ayear or two.
But I don't remember RogerMaris hitting 61 home runs in
1961, just barely too young toremember that but having the
name Roger and then getting hisbaseball card some years later,
a few years later I just I hadthis great love of Roger Maris.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
One of the best things that happened.
You know, roger Maris died atage 51 of cancer, which is sad.
So he's been gone quite a while.
And I have a friend who wasRoger Maris' best friend, andy
Strasberg, and he said that if Iwould send him a copy of that
book he would forward it on toRoger Maris' widow, pat Maris.
(28:49):
And he did, and I got thesweetest letter from Pat Maris
saying she thought I hadcaptured the essence of her late
husband and how much it meantto her.
And boy, that was a great day.
And then I had the chapter onCarl Ustremsky, and he's
notoriously reclusive.
I thought there's no way in theworld I'm ever going to meet
Karius Grunsky.
(29:10):
And lo and behold, he read thechapter and I spent a day with
him in Florida and walked aroundthe golf course with him.
He told me all kinds of goodstories and, as you say, it's a
book about people and if youtell their stories in the right
way it lifts them up, and itlifts the American people up,
because these are great stories.
I mean, he has the consummateoverachiever who wins the Triple
(29:33):
Crown and leads the ImpossibleDream, the 67 Red Sox, all the
way to the World Series against100-1 odds.
They lost 100 games the yearbefore.
It's one of the greateststories in baseball history and
the way he led that team and theway it electrified New England.
That really changed everythingthat ever since 1967, the Red
(29:54):
Sox have been such a focal point.
They've fallen out of favor inthe 50s and the early 60s
because they were just a losingteam.
Year after year after year andafter 67, the fascination and
the interest and the fan baseand everything took off and it's
still a huge deal in NewEngland every summer, red Sox
baseball.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Well, talmadge, I grew up in Milwaukee and was a
Braves fan, henry Aaron fan, andI have to just quickly mention
I serve on the US Postal ServiceCitizens Stamp Advisory
Committee and this past year wecame out with a Henry Aaron
stamp.
I lobbied unsuccessfully tohave him wearing a Milwaukee
Braves hat or a MilwaukeeBrewers hat, but he's in his
(30:35):
Atlanta hat.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I got to spend two days with Hank Aaron.
One of his managers inMilwaukee and then in Atlanta
was Bobby Bragan, who lived herein Fort Worth, and Bobby was a
real mentor to me, father figureto me and he had the Bobby
Braden Youth Foundation which Iwas actively involved with and
for two different banquets HankAaron came and I got to spend a
(30:56):
lot of time.
What a great guy.
Quiet but thoughtful, smart,high integrity, obviously
unbelievable baseball player whohad to deal with his own racial
issues to overcome, to get towhere he was.
But the story of Hank Uren isone of baseball's great stories.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Well, I think we're up against the clock here, but I
just again thank you forjoining me today and for your
book how the Best Did it.
It's available on Amazon,barnes, noble and hopefully in
bookstores near you, and I dohighly recommend it and look
forward to seeing you in Marchwhen you come up to speak to our
students.
Thank you very much, talmadge.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Well, I'm sure looking forward to it, roger,
and I sure appreciate youletting me do this podcast with
you.
Thank, you.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Thank you for listening to the Liberty and
Leadership Podcast.
If you have a comment orquestion, please drop us an
email at podcast at tfasorg, andbe sure to subscribe to the
show on your favorite podcastapp and leave a five-star review
.
Liberty and Leadership isproduced at Podville Media.
I'm your host, roger Ream, anduntil next time, show courage in
(32:09):
things, large and small.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.