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Tuesday, April 22, 2008 |
Times Piece On Lyman Bostock
Here's a really nice piece in the Times by Jerry Crowe on Lyman Bostock. On April 19, 1978, Bostock was mired deep in a 2-for-39 slump that had the recent recipient of a $2.25M, five-year deal doing something that was then and now all but inconceivable: he offered to give back his salary.
Pressing, Bostock told reporters he was "hallucinating" at the plate, noting, "I felt myself standing outside my body up there . . . then jumping back into it just before the pitch. Everything was just a big glare in front of my face."Of course, Autry refused the offer (and IIRC it probably wasn't possible under union rules at the time for him to do so anyway). Bostock eventually gave his April salary to charity; he later died in a famous Gary, Indiana homicide that was aimed at a woman, Barbara Smith, who he had known for all of 20 minutes. The killer, Leonard Smith, eventually was declared criminally insane after two trials (the first resulting in a hung jury); he spent all of 21 months in custody and was released. You can read more on Bostock at my mini-bio.Midway through the slump, he made his offer to Autry.
"He couldn't hit a solid foul ball," recalls Enberg, adding that he and Bostock felt a kinship because Enberg also had spent time at Cal State Northridge -- as an assistant baseball coach in the early 1960s.
"He was embarrassed by his performance and wanted desperately to do well. He just felt that he was shortchanging Gene Autry and he said, 'Don't pay me.' There's no question it endeared him to the fans at a time when the fans were unhappy that he wasn't hitting."
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