July 24, 1976: Lyman Bostock hits for the cycle as Twins thrash White Sox

In 1976 Minnesota Twins center fielder Lyman Bostock was in his second season in the majors. Part of his rookie season (as well as some time in winter ball) had been cut short by ankle injuries, and he had started his sophomore year platooning in center with Steve Brye. However, the 25-year-old Bostock quickly raised eyebrows with his stats. By the beginning of May, he was batting over .300, and his average kept climbing.1

Never considered a power hitter,2 Bostock was suddenly moved into the cleanup spot in the batting order for the first time in his career as a starter in a July 24 game against the Chicago White Sox.3 He told reporters, “When somebody told me I was hitting cleanup, I couldn’t believe it.”4 Bostock made Twins manager Gene Mauch look like a genius, as he hit for the cycle—a single, double, triple, and home run—and contributed a sacrifice fly and a walk, too. Add four runs scored and four runs batted in, and that translated into Minnesota’s fourth straight win.

It was the second game of Minnesota’s four-game series in Chicago. The fourth-place Twins had won the first game, 6-2, on July 23, against the fifth-place White Sox. The second game featured two pitchers each trying for his third win of the season. Minnesota started Eddie Bane, a left-hander. The 24-year-old Chicago native had pitched mainly out of the bullpen in 1973 for Minnesota but spent the next two seasons in the minors, getting called up to the majors in September 1975 for four starts. He began 1976 at Tacoma of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League but was again called up at the end of June. This was his sixth start, and he was having success, winning his previous two decisions and maintaining a 2.73 earned-run average. 

Chicago countered with right-hander Jesse Jefferson. Jefferson had begun his career with Baltimore in 1973 but was traded to the White Sox during the 1975 season.5 Splitting time as a starter and reliever, the 27-year-old Jefferson brought a 6.80 ERA with him to the mound. He struggled to keep batters off the bases; through 12 appearances, his WHIP was 1.83.

A Saturday afternoon crowd of 14,997 turned out at Comiskey Park, where Jefferson did not survive the first inning. He walked Steve Braun to open the game. Roy Smalley’s sacrifice moved Braun to second. Jefferson then gave both Rod Carew and Bostock free passes to load the bases.

That brought Chicago skipper Paul Richards out of the dugout. He motioned for right-hander Pete Vuckovich to enter, relieving Jefferson. Larry Hisle greeted the new pitcher with a two-run single to left. Mike Cubbage also walked, again loading the bases. Tony Oliva flied out to left, and his sacrifice fly brought home Minnesota’s third run. Hisle tried to steal third with Glenn Borgmann batting, but he was caught to end the inning.

Borgmann led off the second inning with a double to right. After Jerry Terrell struck out, Braun singled, driving home Borgmann for a 4-0 lead. Vuckovich retired Smalley but gave Carew his second walk of the game. Bostock tripled to deep center—his fifth three-base hit of the season—and the Twins led by six.

Bane yielded a pair of singles in the bottom of the second but stranded both runners. Chris Knapp, another righty, replaced Vuckovich to start the top of the third. It was the 22-year-old Knapp’s ninth major-league appearance. The Twins put two runners on base, but they did not bring them around to score.

In the top of the fourth, batting for the third time, Bostock crushed a pitch beyond the right-field barrier. It was his third home run of the season after he went homerless in 400 plate appearances in 1975.

Bane struggled in only one inning, and it was the bottom of the fifth. Wayne Nordhagen and Ralph Garr started the inning with singles. Jorge Orta forced Garr at second, bringing up Lamar Johnson with runners at the corners. Bane uncorked a wild pitch, and Nordhagen scored. Johnson then reached on shortstop Smalley’s fielding error. Bill Stein followed with an RBI single to right, making the score 7-2.

Minnesota answered in the top of the sixth. Two one-out singles put Smalley and Carew at the corners, and Bostock hit a sacrifice fly to left to score Smalley for an 8-2 lead.

Knapp was still pitching for Chicago in the seventh. He surrounded two singles with two fly outs before Braun launched his third homer of the year, into deep right, giving the Twins 11 runs. Chicago again put its first two batters on board in the home half, but Bane worked out of the jam without allowing a run.

Bostock came up for the fifth time to lead off the eighth. He pulled a pitch to right for a double. Hisle then reached on shortstop Alan Bannister’s error. Cubbage singled up the middle, and Bostock scored. Pinch-hitting for Oliva, Dan Ford cracked his 11th home run of the season, a three-run blast, pushing the lead to 15-2. Knapp walked two of the next three batters, prompting his removal. Blue Moon Odom, Chicago’s fourth pitcher, retired the next two batters. Knapp had allowed 11 hits and nine runs in his 5⅓ innings of work.

Bane pitched a one-two-three inning in the sixth, and in the bottom of the eighth, he was touched for two more singles. Buddy Bradford’s line-drive double play and a strikeout of Bannister ended the threat.

The Twins had one last offensive surge. Bostock singled to start the ninth and moved to third on Ford’s two-out double. Borgmann walked to load the bases. Terrell then grounded a comebacker to Odom, whose wild toss to first resulted in two more Twins tallies, both unearned. With runners on first and second, Odom walked Braun, loading the bases again. Craig Kusick popped to third for the final out of the inning, but Minnesota now had a 15-run lead.6

With the single, Bostock had hit for the cycle. Brye replaced him in center for the bottom of the ninth. Bane retired the side with three balls lifted into the outfield, finishing the complete-game outing.7

The Twins, who went on to lead the AL with 743 runs scored in 1976, scored in seven different innings. Their 17 hits and 11 bases on balls resulted in 17 runs, their highest total so far in the season.8 Minnesota scored another 13 runs in the first game of the next day’s doubleheader; the White Sox allowed 745 runs in ’76, the most in the AL. When the season ended, the Twins had climbed into third place in the AL West, while the White Sox had sunk to the cellar.

Bostock came into this game batting .331. With the cycle, he raised that mark 11 points. He continued producing through the end of the season, finishing with the fourth-best batting average in the AL.9 He had success at the plate in 1976 against the White Sox, batting .447 with an OPS of 1.172, driving in 11 runs in 13 games.

Lyman Bostock became the eighth player in Minnesota franchise history to hit for the cycle. His accomplishment came just a month after teammate Larry Hisle’s cycle feat (June 4, against the Baltimore Orioles). Four other players also hit for the cycle in 1976: Tim Foli (Montreal Expos, April 21-22), Mike Phillips (New York Mets, June 25), César Cedeño (Houston Astros, August 9, his second career cycle), and Mike Hegan (Milwaukee Brewers, September 3).

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card DB.

Sources  

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA197607240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1976/B07240CHA1976.htm

Notes

1 In 1976 Bostock had 110 starts in center field and Brye had 47.

2 Tom Briere, “Bostock, Twins Clobber Chicago, 17-2,” Minneapolis Tribune, July 25, 1976: 1C.

3 Bostock batted in the top (first or second) or the bottom (eighth or ninth) positions for most of his rookie year. In 1976, he started in the leadoff spot but by the end of June 1976 was hitting in the fifth spot in the lineup, with an occasional game as Minnesota’s leadoff hitter. This was the first game in which Bostock started and batted cleanup.

4 Briere.

5 On June 15, 1975, Baltimore traded Jefferson to the White Sox for Tony Muser.

6 The 31-year-old Odom was pitching in his final season in the majors. This was his fourth appearance of the season, and he pitched in only four more games after this one. In one of those outings, four days later on July 28, Odom started against the Oakland A’s and pitched five no-hit innings but walked nine batters. Francisco Barrios relieved Odom and threw four more no-hit innings with two walks. The White Sox had a 2-1 win and a combined no-hitter with 11 walks allowed, a major-league record for a no-hitter.

7 This was the only complete game in Bane’s 44-game career (three seasons).

8 In 1976, Minnesota scored 18 runs twice (September 5, also against the White Sox, and September 10, against the Kansas City Royals), but they came after this game.

9 Bostock’s .323 batting average placed him fourth in the AL, behind Kansas City’s Hall of Famer George Brett (.333), Brett’s teammate Hal McRae (.332), and Bostock’s Hall of Fame teammate, Rod Carew (.331).