FULL METAL JACKET "When Knowing Your Rights Is All You Have Left" vs. "Pyle Takes It Right In The Breadbasket"

Private Pyle

vs.

Lyman Bostock

Bostock would make basket catches, in the same style that Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente had used for many years. For Bostock, the basket catch had little to do with Mays and more to do with the lack of proper equipment.

“When I was 8 years old, my mother bought me my first glove, but someone stole it the next day,” Bostock told Twins beat writer Bob Fowler, corresponding for the Sporting News. “My mother wasn’t about to buy me another one. But a friend of hers at work gave her a replacement. Unfortunately, it was a left-hander’s model, and I’m right-handed. Since it was the only glove I had, I had to use it. It was the only way I could catch the ball. It became a habit.”

Lyman Bostock was actually a left-handed batter who threw right-handed “He batted left-handed and threw right-handed”

Private Leonard Lawrence

vs.

Leonard Smith

California Angels outfielder Lyman Bostock was fatally shot in Gary, Indiana, on September 23, 1978, in a tragic case of mistaken identity. While riding in a car, Bostock was struck in the head by a shotgun blast fired by Leonard Smith, a jealous husband attempting to murder his estranged wife, who was a passenger.

The shooting occurred while Bostock was visiting his uncle during a road trip to the area. After a game in Chicago against the White Sox, he spent the evening with family and friends. As they drove, Smith followed the vehicle and opened fire, intending to hit his wife, Barbara, in the front passenger seat. Instead, the shotgun blast tragically struck Bostock in the back seat. He died in the hospital two hours later.

Following a hung jury, Leonard Smith was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a second trial, ultimately serving only seven months. This outcome prompted the Indiana legislature to revise the state's insanity laws. At 27, Bostock was a rising MLB star, having hit .336 with the Minnesota Twins the previous year. He remains the only Major League Baseball player to be murdered during an active season.