Out to the Ballgame

 

That’s how much of a baseball fan Talmage Boston is.

 

2004 may have been a big baseball year for Boston, but if you ask him, he’ll tell you that 1939 was the biggest year for baseball. Boston, a business litigator with Winstead Sechrest & Minick in Dallas and (until recently) Chairman of the Council of Chairs for the state bar, swings for the literary fences in 1939: Baseball’s Tipping Point, which was released in March and is an updated and revised version of a book he wrote in 1994.

 

“In that year, the Hall of Fame opened, Little League was created, baseball was first televised, Lou Gehrig gave his ‘luckiest man on the face of the earth’ speech, and Ted Williams began his major league career,” Boston says. “All these things became a chapter.”

 

Boston didn’t write the book only for people as in love with the national pastime as he is, though. “These are stories about people and they have application. Take Lou Gehrig –– we’re all going to face adversity, but are we going to face it as he did?” says Boston. “[The book] appeals to people who just like good stories.”

 

Boston, who is board certified in civil trial law and civil appellate law, finished the book after two years of squeezing in time to write before work and on weekends. But he credits his law career with helping him tell the stories. “The skill set to being a good trial lawyer is identical to the skill set to being a baseball historian,” says Boston, who was inducted into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997 and is now a columnist for the Park Cities People newspaper. “You need to be able to research accurately and express yourself clearly.”