Lyman Bostock
 

Who remembers Lyman Bostock? Personally I didn't know who this guy was until this morning. Apparently he was murdered at the end of the 1978 baseball season. For those of you who don't know him, here are a couple links.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/bostoly01.shtml
http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/L/Lyman-Bostock.htm

Was this guy as great of a human being as people say he was? And how come I've never heard of him?
I found his page on baseballreference while looking at Ichiro's statistics. Bostock is listed as Ichiro's most similar batter.

Oh, I most definitely do. I remember him on the Twins as well as the Angels. Good player, tragic ending to his life.

dola

Yes, I'm old.

I was a fan & that event made it difficult for me to follow baseball for awhile.

I remember very vividly watching the NFL Today, and Brent Musberger opened up with the words: "Lyman Bostock is dead." It sucked. :(

Dola--

The deaths of Bostock and Thurman Munson were the "closest to home" deaths of my childhood. No one in my family died until I was 19 (grandmother), so those were the only two deaths I "experienced" as a child.

I can't say I really remember it, since I was only 7 when he died, but I know all about it.

The only death that I can say really hit home for me until I was in high school (when I had 3 grandparents die in 4 years) was John Lennon's. I was only 9 when he died, but the Beatles had such an impact on my early childhood music experiences that I cried when my mom told me the next morning.

It was Elvis for me. My parents were huge fans and his death really upset them and my sisters.

Because you were born in 1981?

I remember it well (being in college at the time).

Makes no difference. I was born in '86 and know who Freddie Lynn is. Heh. Just an example. I was goiing to say Mickey Mantle, but Bucc might take me seriously and then rant about how everyone should know who Mantle is. :)

Who is Mickey Mantle?

Im interested in the story being a young-in. Can somebody fill me in on exactly what happened to him?

the mouse with the big black cute ears

Actually, I never saw Mantle play and knew more about the stars of the 1970s before I knew anything about Mantle.

"By some accounts, the gunman was aiming for the woman sitting next to Bostock in the car, and by other accounts, it was a case of mistaken identity. A man named Leonard Smith served 21 months in prison for Bostock's death."

21 Months? A mans life is worth 21 Months?

I saw him play several times with the Twins. He wasn't a power hitter but he did hit the longest homerun I think I ever saw in the old Metropolitan Stadium to win a game in the tenth inning.

Thurman Munson's death hit me hard, largely because I've been a life-long Yankee fan, but also two weeks before I had read his electric meter and was looking forward to the strike lasting longer (I was management filling in for the meter readers--kind of cool for a week) so I could maybe see him the next cycle.

The earliest and most bizarre player death I noticed was a Houston Colt .45 pitcher named Jim Umbricht who had cancer. Topps issued his baseball card following his death, and all it said on the back was, "Jim died last year."

Cold.

I've spoken to 3-4 guys over the years who mentioned that that card shook them up when they were little kids first into baseball cards.

For me that would have been the death of Hernel "Jeep" Jackson. He was a point guard for UTEP from '83 to '87 (it was under his tutelage that a young Tim Hardaway learned the nuances of the point position). Jeep's senior year the Miners had upset Arizona (on Arizona's home court, where they hadn't lost in several years) in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Jeep was already popular in El Paso, but after that win he became nothing short of a superstar in the town.

That summer Jeep was playing in an exhibition game with some Fort Bliss soldiers versus members of the Houston Oilers. During the game Jeep collapsed on the floor, and was declared dead at William Beaumont Army Medical Center shortly after.

After hearing about Jeep's death on the news that night I tried to sleep, but it was impossible. The house we lived on was on the mountain and overlooked the city. I remember looking out my window at the city light at two in the morning and thinking that Jeep should be out there somewhere. I remember thinking that it was so unfair, that Jeep still had so much to do, that he was supposed to go to the NBA (actually, he was probably to short to make it, but in my ten year old mind I had no doubt that he was going to be a star in the league). I just remember crying my eyes out while thinking about poor Jeep and looking out at the bright El Paso lights...

Edit: Jeep's death turned out to be the result of a heart defect that had never been detected. Also, he had a trace of cocaine ( :( ) in his system, so that surely didn't help his heart any.

Hank Gathers' death on the court shocked me, and still saddens me today.

Bostock is one of the more infamous stories in the Angels' long history of tragedy. He was brought in to Anaheim in the new free agency of the times, and was a guy Gene Autry and Buzzie Bavasi wanted to build their team around. His death was just tragic, not only to his friends and family, but to an entire franchise and its fans as well.

I didn't start following the Angels until 1980, though (when I was seven), so I don't have any direct recollection of Bostock's loss.

Chief Rum