FanNation - The Republic of Sport

I was seven years old when Lyman Bostock was murdered 30 years ago ??? on September 23, 1978. I guess I was just starting to understand death and the consequences of dying ??? you know, the whole gone forever thing. That was a special year in my baseball development. I vividly remember the day when I was in the Ben Franklin store and purchased my first two packs of baseball cards. It was also the year I watched my first full ballgame ??? the regular season #163 game for the Yanks and BoSox. I probably collected around 150 cards that year. I studied their backs like nobody???s business. I remember Bruce Sutter???s ERA was in the one???s, not the two???s, like most other great pitchers. So in my mind he had to have been the greatest pitcher of all time. One night my dad was looking through my cards with me and saw Bostock???s. He said something like, ???Oh, that dude???s dead now.??? Those words stung like hell. How could a baseball player who had his own baseball card be dead? It must have been a good while after Bostock had been killed because my dad was nonchalant while telling me, ???Somebody shot him.??? I asked ???Why???? Pops was clueless. Bostock being murdered stuck with me. I wanted to know why. At about age 12, I asked my step-dad if he knew. ???He got caught messing around with somebody else???s woman.??? I was horrified. I didn???t want to believe it but accepted it as fact. Of course this was way before you could get information on anything with just a few keystrokes. In the virgin days of my Internet experience, I searched for Bostock and the details of his death. I was disappointed when I found nothing. I guess it was about five years ago that I found the truth. It wasn???t just that his murder had nothing to do with messing around with another woman, but Lyman Bostock was the picture perfect example of how professional athletes should behave off the field. After a great 1977 season that saw him finish second to only his Minnesota Twins??? teammate, Rod Carew, and his lofty .388 batting average, Lyman signed with the California Angels. His 1978 season started poorly with his new team. This is unheard of, but Bostock actually went to see Angel???s owner, Gene Autry, and attempted to give him his April salary back. After Autry refused, Bostock donated it to charity. Lyman Bostock was a true class act. In the grand scheme of things, one 30-year-old drive-by murder of a 27-year-old professional baseball player doesn???t register on the radar with anyone but his family, friends and a few hardcore baseball fans, including a 37-year-old in West Virginia who can still remembers the awful sting of hearing he???d been murdered. ?????????- In 2,004 at bats over four seasons, Lyman Bostock had a line of .311/.365/.427 with an OPS+ of 123. The outfielder finished 27th in MVP voting in 1977 and 23rd in 1978.