Lyman Bostock: The Inspiring Life and Tragic Death of a Ballplayer

by K. Adam Powell

Lyman Bostock Jr. had baseball in his blood. The son of a former Negro League standout, Bostock began his professional career with the Minnesota Twins in 1975. Two years later, he became one of the first players in major league baseball to cash in on the new era of free agency, signing with the California Angels for more than $2 million—one of the richest contracts in sports history at that time. But Bostock’s true potential would never be known. On September 23, 1978, Bostock was shot and killed in Gary, Indiana. He was just 27 years old.

In Lyman Bostock: The Inspiring Life and Tragic Death of a Ballplayer, K. Adam Powell tells the story of Bostock’s humble beginnings in Birmingham, Alabama, his coming-of-age in Los Angeles, his involvement in the Black Power movement, his brief yet impactful baseball career, and his senseless murder in 1978. Those who knew Bostock and played alongside him believed he was good enough to win multiple batting titles, and perhaps even make the Hall of Fame some day. More than just a ballplayer, Bostock was known as a stand-out citizen who never forgot where he came from, investing hours of his time giving back to his community, visiting with local youth, and hosting baseball clinics.

Lyman Bostock captures a remarkable era in professional baseball, an era when ballplayers such as Bostock still engaged closely with their fans even as power shifted from management and owners to the players. Through careful research, exclusive interviews, and rarely-seen photographs, Bostock’s life and the times in which he lived are conveyed in intimate detail. For baseball fans of all ages, Lyman Bostock’s biography is a poignant and inspiring story of an upcoming star whose life was cut much too short.

350 pages, Hardcover

Published December 9, 2016

Reviews

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Applaud the author for putting substance into such thin subject matter (filling a whole book about a guy who began his major league career at age 24 and died at age 27), but it felt like a missed opportunity. I counted maybe three in-person interviews (his college coach doing the majority of the talking) and the rest of the sources were cobbled together from previously published newspaper, magazine, and television accounts. Which would have been excusable if his career spanned the 1940's (when primary sources are harder to come by), but Lyman Bostock played in the 1970's -- the majority of his teammates, family members, and friends are still alive and well, and it doesn't appear they were even reached for comment. The author's visit to the spot where he was murdered was interesting, but the account of the murder is taken mostly from a ten-year-old article in ESPN the Magazine -- which told it better, and did reach out to said sources. Furthermore, the author too frequently relies on in-game play-by-play and statistical recitation to get through certain parts of the season where he doesn't have much to contribute, which slow the pacing of the book down to a crawl. There are more engaging ways to flesh out a story -- contextualizing significant events, for instance -- that don't come off as unnecessary padding. Thin.