Early Life
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.
At one point during his youth, Bostock's baseball glove was stolen. With his mother unable to afford to purchase another, he had to use a glove given to him by a friend of the family. However, the donated glove was for left-handed fielders. Bostock's discomfort in catching fly balls with the hand he was unaccustomed to using led him to begin making basket catches at that time. The habit stayed with him and he frequently made basket catches of fly balls for the remainder of his life.
Bostock played baseball at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles and after graduating from there, attended San Fernando Valley State College, now known as the California State University, Northridge (CSUN). It was there that he met Youvene Brooks, who would become his wife. He did not play baseball during his freshman and sophomore years at the school, choosing instead to become involved in student activism. Nonetheless, he was selected in the 1970 amateur draft by the St. Louis Cardinals.
Bostock chose not to sign with the team, instead electing to stay in college, and he began playing baseball there. Bostock was an all-conference player in the California Collegiate Athletic Association in both of his seasons at Northridge, hitting .344 as a junior and .296 as a senior, leading the Matadors to a second-place finish at the 1972 Division II College World Series. He was drafted by the Twins in the 26th round (596th overall) of the 1972 amateur draft and decided to turn professional, though he was 15 credits short of finishing his college degree.
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