Lyman Wesley Bostock Jr. (November 22, 1950 – September 24, 1978) was an American professional baseball player.
He played Major League Baseball for four seasons, as an outfielder for the Minnesota Twins (1975–77) and California Angels (1978), with a lifetime average of .311.
Bostock was shot and mortally wounded while riding as a passenger in a vehicle in his hometown of Gary, Indiana, on September 23, 1978, hours after playing against the Chicago White Sox earlier in the day.
The habit stayed with him and he frequently made basket catches of fly balls for the remainder of his life.
Bostock did not play baseball during his first two years of college, choosing instead to become involved in student activism.
"[4] Bostock chose not to sign, stayed in college, and began playing baseball for Coach Hiegert and the Matadors.
He was an all-conference player in the California Collegiate Athletic Association in both of his seasons at San Fernando Valley, hitting .344 as a junior and .296 as a senior, leading the Matadors to a second-place finish at the Division II College World Series in 1972.
He was selected by the Twins in the 26th round (596th overall) of the 1972 amateur draft and decided to turn professional, just 15 credits short of finishing his bachelor's degree.
A fine defensive center fielder, Bostock finished fourth in the tight American League batting race in 1976, his first full season in the majors.
He hit .323, finishing behind the Kansas City Royals' George Brett (.333) and Hal McRae (.332), and teammate Rod Carew (.331).
On May 25, Bostock collected 12 putouts in the second game of a doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox, tying the major league mark for putouts by an outfielder, which had been set by Earl Clark of the Boston Braves in 1929,[8] and was equalled by Jacoby Ellsbury in 2009.
[8] After the 1977 season ended, Bostock became one of baseball's earliest big-money free agents, and signed with the California Angels, owned by Gene Autry.
[3] Almost immediately, Bostock donated $10,000 to a church in his native Birmingham, Alabama to rebuild its Sunday school.
[13] "He came into my office and told me he was reluctant to take his salary," Angels' general manager Buzzy Bavasi recalled.
[5] Following the game at Comiskey Park,[15] as he regularly did when in Chicago, Bostock visited his uncle Thomas Turner in nearby Gary, Indiana.
[13] After the visit, Turner agreed to give Hawkins and her sister, Barbara Smith, a ride to their cousin's house.
At 10:40 p.m. as Turner's vehicle was stopped at a traffic signal at the intersection of 5th and Jackson Streets, Leonard Smith's car pulled up alongside them.
In the second trial, Smith was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and committed for treatment to Logansport State Hospital.
Leonard Smith returned to Gary, Indiana, where he resided for the remainder of his life, moving in his later years in a high-rise apartment building for senior citizens.
After his 1980 release from custody, he never again ran afoul of the law and he declined all requests to comment publicly about the killing of Bostock.
When we played the Angels [in 1978], he sent the batboy over to me with a newspaper (The Sporting News) photograph of himself wearing sunglasses with dollar signs on the lenses.
[18] In his eulogy at the funeral of Bostock, Angels teammate Ken Brett said, "We called him Jibber Jabber because he enlivened every clubhouse scene, chasing tension, drawing laughter in the darkest hour of defeat.