Lyman Bostock

About Lyman Bostock

Lyman Wesley Bostock, Jr. (November 22, 1950 - September 23, 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). He batted left-handed and threw right-handed.

Bostock's career was cut short when he was shot and killed in his hometown of Gary, Indiana. He remains the only major league baseball player murdered during the baseball season.

Lyman Bostock, Jr. was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Annie Pearl Bostock and Lyman Bostock, Sr. (1918-2005), a Negro Leagues professional baseball star from 1938-1954 as a left-handed first baseman. Pearl and Bostock, Sr., split when Bostock, Jr., was a young child, with Pearl relocating her son and herself first to Gary, Indiana, in 1954. In 1958, when young Bostock was eight years old, the two relocated again, this time to Los Angeles, California. The younger Bostock remained estranged from his father for the remainder of his life, feeling that his father had abandoned him.