237. "Lyman Bostock: Return to Sender" 7" x 10.5"

Size: 7 × 10.5 inches art print (not a comic book) Availability: Pre-order ends Sunday, March 15th at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET Shipping: Expected to ship approximately 40–60 days after the purchase window closes. Estimated timeframe. Not guaranteed. From the Artist: LYMAN BOSTOCK: RETURN TO SENDER Baseball keeps careful track of its numbers. Batting averages, home runs, RBIs. Everything neatly recorded. Baseball is really well-suited for "numbers" people But every once in a while a story comes along that has very little to do with numbers at all. Lyman Bostock could hit. Over his short career he batted .311, which is remarkable by any standard. In 1977 he hit .336 and finished second in the American League batting race. By the time he arrived with the California Angels in 1978 he was already widely respected as one of the best young hitters in the game. Then April happened. Through the first month of the season Bostock was hitting just .147. Instead of shrugging it off as a slump, he did something almost unheard of. He went to Angels owner Gene Autry and asked if he could return part of his salary because he felt he hadn’t earned it. Autry refused to take the money back. So Bostock donated the equivalent amount to charity instead. It is one of those stories that quietly says everything about the kind of person he was. Bostock rebounded and finished the 1978 season hitting .296. His career average would end at .311. Those are impressive numbers, but they are not the reason people still talk about him. What people remember is the character behind them. That is the story behind this piece.