Denny Lyons

Denny Lyons hammered the baseball and played fine defense in his 13-season 19th-century major-league career. His outstanding performance at the plate, now obscured by a century-plus of intervening baseball history, ranks him with the top third basemen of all time, at least as measured against his contemporaries.

David Nemec’s profile of Lyons in Volume 1 of his Major League Baseball Profiles 1871-1900: The Players Who Built the Game serves as an excellent introduction to the ballplayer. Nemec writes, “when Pie Traynor was voted the best third baseman in the first half of the twentieth century (with Frank Baker second), and Jimmy Collins was rated the top third baseman prior to 1900, none of the three ranked anywhere near Lyons as the top offensive force among ML players to that point with a minimum of 1,000 games at third base.  … [Lyons] matched up well with the top fielders of his day in range factor, assists, and double plays.”1  Lyons still holds the single-season record of 255 putouts by a third baseman, which he set in 1887 at age 21 with the Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association.2

Offensively, Lyons finished with a career batting average of .310, an OPB of .407, and an OPS of .850. Modern baseball statistics reflect his proficiency at the plate as compared to the players of his era – and beyond: he holds a career Adjusted OPS+ of 140, which ties that of Alex Rodriguez. Of players with at least 1,000 games at third base, only Mike Schmidt’s career OPS+ of 148 ranks significantly ahead of him.3

Nemec goes on, “Why then is Lyons practically an unknown [today]? There are all the usual reasons plus one or two more: (1) he never played on a pennant winner; (2) most of his best seasons occurred in the rebel AA rather than in the NL; (3) although his ML career lasted 13 years, many of those were only partial seasons; and (4) he had a reputation for being egocentric, a lusher, and a disorganizer.”  Add to this list an errant fastball from Amos Rusie that shattered two of his fingers and ended his major-league career in 1897 only months after he reached age 31.

Lyons died in 1929, not much more than 30 years after his last major-league appearance, and by then his career was already fading from memory. In noting Lyons’ death, The Sporting News reported that, “Lyons was probably the last of the old group of hitters who made baseball famous and made themselves famous years ago. Lyons was one of the hardest drivers as a batsman ever to face a pitcher. The fans these days do not know much about him. … Lyons was a batter who knocked the fielders down with line drives if they did not get out of the way. A splendid man at his best.”4

***

Dennis Patrick Aloysius Lyons was born on March 12, 1866, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents were Michael and Bridgette Lyons, both born in Ireland.5  He was then the youngest of six children. A set of twins (including his sister Nellie) joined the family two years after Lyons was born. Bridgette died in 1869 from dysentery and Michael in 1886 of tuberculosis.

The westside Cincinnati neighborhood where Lyons grew up was a regular source of major-league talent in the 1880s. Lyons first played for pay in 1884, while he was working in a shoe factory, with the semipro Kenton (Kentucky) team.6 He also played on other Cincinnati-area teams with future major-leaguer Billy Klusman.7 

The following year, Lyons – a 5-foot-10, 185-pound righty batter and thrower – began his professional baseball career with 94 games for the Columbus (Georgia) Stars in the Southern League. Lyons’ play earned him a major-league audition with the Providence Grays of the National League. On September 18, 1885, he made his debut, filling in for third baseman Jerry Denny, then suspended from the team, evidently for intoxication.8  In four games, Lyons got two hits, including a double, in 16 at-bats.

Jerry Denny’s suspension highlighted the alcohol problem facing professional baseball. “The issue of the hour among baseball directors and managers is the temperance question,” related a director of the New York Ball Club in 1887.

The director went on, “The prevalence of this evil is great among ballplayers, and from it results a great deal of bad playing. … People do not pay to see men misplay or stagger across the field, as occasionally has been the case on the Polo Grounds.” The director noted a suspicion among the fans that “New York’s ill luck was due largely to the condition of the men, who had been enjoying themselves pretty freely with liquor … .”9  Lyons battled the bottle during much of his career.

Lyons started the 1886 season with the Atlanta Atlantas of the Southern Association. Perhaps in preview of events to come, he got locked up with several teammates while on a drunk that resulted in a confrontation with a policeman.10 Still, Lyons turned in a fine performance, batting .327 with six home runs in 315 at-bats.

As the season progressed, the Pittsburgh Alleghenies of the major league American Association offered Atlanta $1,000 for Lyons’ release.11  The offer was declined. Other teams kept an eye on the Atlanta team, thinking the club might go bankrupt and collapse, making Lyons available.12 But Atlanta completed its season. Thereafter, Lyons accepted an offer of $500 from the Philadelphia A’s of the AA and hit .211 in 32 games.13

Quickly adjusting to major-league pitching, the 22-year-old Lyons produced a remarkable season with the A’s in 1887. In the sixth game of the campaign, he went 6-for-6 with two doubles and a triple in the A’s 18-17 victory over Brooklyn.14 (The game lasted only two hours, 30 minutes; winning pitcher Al Atkinson gave up all 17 runs for the A’s.) Lyons finished the year batting .367 with 43 doubles, 14 triples, and six homers, drove in 102 runs, and stole 73 bases. He ended with an OBP of .421, an OPS of .943, and an OPS+ of 162. He ranked fourth in association batting average and fifth in on-base percentage. His year included a 52-game on-base streak of hits and walks that ended on August 29.15 Lyons also set the current major-league record for putouts by a third baseman of 255,16 and led the league in double plays for that position.

The 137 games he played that year set his personal high-water mark. He appeared in over 100 games in only six of his next 10 seasons in the majors. Suspensions for various infractions, including drunkenness and insubordination, and injuries curtailed Lyons’ playing time. Nevertheless, he starred on the field. From 1887 to 1891 Lyons never finished lower than seventh in league batting average or lower than sixth in on-base percentage.

Lyons showed up for the 1888 season overweight after “wintering well” according to the Philadelphia Times.17  He weighed over 200 pounds for the rest of his major-league career,18 but the extra weight hardly hampered his play. He hit .296 (seventh in the league) in 111 games, as a string of injuries reduced his playing time. He finished with an OBP of .363 (sixth in the league) and his six home runs ranked fourth.

In 1889 he hit .329 (third in the league), posted an OBP of .426 (also third), hit nine home runs (fifth), and again led the league in double plays as a third baseman with 29. Despite his performance, Lyons began to show signs of the troubles that affected his career. He missed or skipped much of spring training,19 and missed a game for an unknown reason on July 14.20 Despite Lyons’ performance at the plate, his work habits irritated manager Bill Sharsig, who suspended Lyons indefinitely on September 3 for insubordination and missing practice.21

Given Lyons’ contributions on the field, it remains surprising he did not jump to the Players League for the 1890 season. Most of the better players in the AA did. Perhaps Lyons’ reputation for being disruptive and drinking to excess disinclined the club owners in the new league from pursuing him, or accepting his offer of services made later during the season.

In any case, back with the A’s, Lyons produced his statistically finest year at the plate. Likely benefiting from the depleted competitive set in the AA in 1890, he hit .354 (second in the league to Chicken Wolfe’s .364), hit seven home runs (good for third), and led the league in OBP at .461, OPS at .992, and OPS+ at 193. But he played only 88 games amid injuries and his propensity to overindulge.

Things came to a head in June. Lyons did not show up for a home game on June 13 against the Brooklyn Gladiators. While the A’s won 5-4, the local press expressed displeasure with the A’s sloppy play. The Philadelphia Times noted that, “Just what ailed the players the crowd judged for themselves, and the fact that Denny Lyons did not show up made it only more plain.”22 The stumbling play of team captain and center fielder Curt Welch was particularly suspect. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer, which attributed the win to the umpire favoring the A’s, reported that Lyons was spotted outside the park during the game holding up a lamppost with a big cigar in his hand.23

Thereafter, it was alleged that the New York Players League club had gotten Lyons and Welch drunk in an attempt to get them to jump their contracts. Executives of the Players League reported that Lyons had approached them, but they wanted nothing to do with him. In any case, the repentant Welch quickly got back in manager Sharsig’s good graces, while the defiant Lyons got fined $100 and suspended indefinitely. A contrite Lyons returned to the field some days later after promising never to repeat the offense.24 

Lyons broke that promise. Following a 21-8 to Columbus on August 28), the Philadelphia Inquirer, which tended to criticize Lyons’ habits, reported, “Denny Lyons had evidently forgotten to go home the previous night and his condition was such that it was with greatest difficulty that he kept from falling every time he went after a ball.”25 Another suspension through at least September 12 followed, and the press speculated that Lyons intended to join the Chicago Pirates of the Players League (which, in any case, would not have him).26

The Players League folded following the 1890 season, and most of the players rejoined their teams in the AA. The Athletics, rather than retain Lyons, chose to release him to a circuit rival, the St. Louis Browns, for an undisclosed amount.27 As negotiations proceeded, Browns owner Chris Von der Ahe noted that Lyons was a good man and that he had stopped drinking. Von der Ahe proved to be overly optimistic.

With the Browns, Lyons proved his performance in 1890 was no fluke. He hit .315, good enough for sixth in the AA. He finished second in OBP at .445, third in the league with an OPS+ of 150 and finished second in the league with 11 home runs in 120 games. Among those round-trippers was a “mammoth” home run in a losing effort against the Boston Reds on June 7.28

Nevertheless, the St. Louis ballclub proved too congenial for Lyons. Mercurial club boss Von der Ahe operated a saloon and avidly promoted beer sales at the ballpark. The Browns players developed quite the reputation for drinking, to which Lyons contributed. The Sporting News, with which Von der Ahe feuded, took to calling the team the St. Louis Boozers.29

While suspended for drinking in July, Lyons and Browns catcher Jack Boyle (a member of the Night Owl Club with Lyons in hometown Cincinnati), then out with a sore hand, left the team and went on a wild spree with pitcher Mark Baldwin of the NL Pittsburgh Pirates. Von der Ahe saw Baldwin as making yet another attempt to get players to jump their Browns contacts and join the Pirates; he dispatched a detective to retrieve the errant players. On rejoining the team, Lyons and Boyle repented their actions. Von der Ahe chalked up Lyons’ behavior to his drinking, noting that he had stayed “relatively sober” that year.30

When the AA collapsed following the 1891 season, four franchises, including the Browns, were absorbed into the National League, which expanded to 12 teams. A mad scramble for players ensued, with the Pirates and the New York Giants pursuing Lyons. A minor controversy arose about whether the Pirates had Lyons under contract.31 Ultimately, Lyons and several other Browns joined the Giants.

Before the season, Lyons told a friend that he intended to totally abstain during the season,32 and he apparently did. While he played in only 108 games, press reports in 1892 do not refer to his overindulgence. The Chicago Tribune described his home run on July 21 against the Cubs as the longest hit ever at the Polo Grounds.33 Through it all, though, Lyons had his worst full year at the plate. He hit only .257 with eight home runs, as the dissension-ridden Giants struggled, hindered by the daily friction between captain Buck Ewing and shortstop Jack Glasscock.34  

Lyons’ performance was good for an OPS+ of 129 in 1892, as the league as a whole hit only .245. Even so, Giants management released him (either because of substandard performance or possibly at his request) with 25 games still to be played in the season.35  Lyons then joined the Pittsburgh Pirates, a club that had sought to sign him since 1886, for the coming season. In 1893, Lyons returned to form, benefitin,– as did all batsmen – from the elongation of the pitching distance to the modern-day 60 feet, six inches. He batted .306 with an OBP of .430 (good for sixth in the league) and drove in 105 runs.

Lyons played a critical part in an interesting triple play that year. Connie Mack, then catching for the Pirates, took advantage of the recently adopted infield fly rule and the players’ lack of familiarity with it. In the July 22 game against St. Louis, the Browns had loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth inning. Sandy Griffin then launched a towering popup that Mack left home plate to handle in fair territory. Lyons raced in from third to cover home plate for Mack. Aware the batter was out under the rule, Mack let the ball drop, but the confused St. Louis runners thought they had to advance. Mack threw the ball home to Lyons, shouting to tag the runner, which Lyons did. Mack then pointed to third and Lyons threw to Frank Shugart, who tagged out another advancing Browns runner.36

In 1894, Lyons’ career began a downward trend. His contract provided a bonus if he stayed sober for the year.37 He did not make it – after injuring a finger on July 20,38 the following day Lyons showed up to the game drunk and got in an argument with a fan that led to a fight.39 There followed another suspension for drunkenness (seemingly his last) and then a release, which ended his time with the team.40  Limited to 72 games, Lyons posted a .319 batting average for the 1894 season.

Chris Von der Ahe, under a great deal of financial pressure at the time,41 signed the 29-year-old for the 1895 season, which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch headlined as “An Aggregation of ‘Has Beens’ Masquerading as the St. Louis Browns.”42 Unfortunately, Lyons wrenched his knee on May 12 and played only 34 games.43 The St. Louis Globe-Democrat attributed the injury to the very poor playing condition of the team’s home field.44

With Lyons laid up, Von der Ahe directed him to change his boarding house, which also operated as a saloon.45  Lyons declined on the basis that his contract did not require it. Overriding the club board of directors, 46 Von der Ahe then denied Lyons his pay while he was laid off, offering Lyons his full salary if he changed his residence.47 Rather than moving, Lyons promptly sued Von der Ahe, asserting that his contract called for him to either be paid while injured or released.  Von der Ahe released him in August.48  The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that the loss of Lyons owing to injury and then his release cost the 11th-place (39-92-5) Browns dearly.49

Lyons’ career rebounded after Pittsburgh signed him for the 1896 season. The Sporting News reported that his contract contained a clause requiring him to abstain from drinking, and it appears that he did.50  In 118 games, he hit .307 with an OBP of .406, with a 25-game hitting streak that still stands tied for fifth-longest in franchise history.51 

Lyons moved to first base in 1897 but suffered two very badly fractured fingers when struck by an Amos Rusie fastball on May 17. “The Hoosier Thunderbolt” employed more than strategic wildness when firing his blazing fastball, and many players feared Lyons’ fate or worse when facing him. The injury ended Lyons’ season and effectively his major-league career. He played in only 37 additional games, hitting .206. The Pirates released Lyons on July 25, 1897, bringing his major league career to a close.52

In 1,123 major-league games spread over 13 seasons, Lyons posted an impressive .310/.407/.442 slash line, with 62 home runs among his 375 extra-base hits. He also scored 933 runs while driving in 756 more. Lyons’ offensive performance compares favorably to those of Deadball Era Hall of Famers Home Run Baker and Jimmy Collins. Playing almost exclusively as a third baseman, Denny’s .882 fielding percentage was respectable for the mostly barehanded era in which he played.

Regrettably, his behavior was not as commendable. A lack of self-discipline and a weakness for alcohol undermined his game readiness and led to frequent suspensions. On average, Lyons played in fewer than 90 games during seasons when his teams played more than 130. Conduct demerits, as well as Cooperstown’s bias against American Association players, may well be why Denny Lyons has not received more Hall of Fame consideration.

Lyons stayed in the game for a few years after his release by Pittsburgh. While playing for the Omaha/St. Joseph team in the Western League in 1898, his injured knee grew so arthritic he was reduced on some days to a shuffle.53 He signed on with the Wheeling (West Virginia) Stogies of the Inter-State League for the 1899 and 1900 seasons. In 1902, Lyons reportedly got his weight back under 200 pounds and looked for another opportunity.54 The following year, he accepted an offer to serve as player/manager for the Beaumont (Texas) Oil Gushers of the low-minor South Texas League and guided the club to a last-place (53-71) finish.55

Lyons never married.56  He left professional baseball after 1903, fell on hard times, essentially crippled by his bad knee, and was reported to be in “pitiable condition” by 1911.57  That year many of his major-league friends from Cincinnati organized a baseball game benefit for him.58

On January 2, 1929, Lyons died of a heart ailment, with nephritis as a contributing condition, at the home of his sister Nellie and her husband in Covington, Kentucky.59  He was 62. His remains were interred in the Lyons family plot in St. Joseph’s New Cemetery in the Price Hill area of Cincinnati, Ohio, the neighborhood where he grew up.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Bill Lamb and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Terry Bohn.

Photo credit: Denny Lyons, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources included in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-Reference.com, Baseball-Almanac.com, and Retrosheet.com.

Notes

1 David Nemec (compiler and editor), Major League Baseball Profiles 1871-1900, Volume1: The Players Who Built the Game (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011) 418-420.  Nemec wrote Lyons’ profile.

2 Baseball Reference, Single-Season Leaders & Records for Putouts as 3B, www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/PO_3b_season.shtml.

3 Baseball Reference, Career Leaders & Records for Adjusted OPS+.

4 “Casual Comment,” The Sporting News, January 24, 1929, 4.

5 Cemetery records at the St. Jospeph’s New Cemetery in Cincinnati name Lyons’ parents as Patrick and Elizbeth Lyons, but baptismal records name his parents as Michael and Bridgette Lyons.  He appears with Michael in the 1870 and 1880 census reports.

6 “Kentons-Buckeyes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 23, 1884; Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 418.

7 “Baseball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 28, 1885, 6; “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 8, 1883, 10.

8 “Notes.,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 20, 1885, 10. Jerry Denny was suspended several times by teams for being under the influence while playing. See e.g., “Baseball News,” Philadelphia Times, July 11, 1886, 11, for a suspension when Denny was with the St. Louis Maroons.

9 “Base Ball News in New York, Director Discusses Temperance,” Philadelphia Times, February 6, 1887, 11.

10 “Atlanta Players in the Lockup,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, April 24, 1886, 5.

11 “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 6, 1886, 10.

12 “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 1, 1886, 10; “Jones Release,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 3, 1886, 2.  In addition to Pittsburgh, the Reds, the A’s, and the NL Detroit Wolverines pursued Lyons.

13 “Diamond Dust,” Atlanta Constitution, September 19, 1886, 12.

14 “The Athletics Win a Fourth Victory Over the Metropolitans—Lyons Great Work,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 27, 1887, 3.  Walks counted as hits in 1887, the only year that they did.

15 Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 418.

16 The current NL record is 251 set by Jimmy Collins in Boston 1900, and the AL is 243 by Willie Kamm of Chicago in 1928.  Baseball Almanac—Putout Records for Third Basemen.

17 “Baseball Notes,” Philadelphia Times, March 18, 1888, 16.  The article notes that Lyons was the fattest player on the team.

18 Through most of his career Lyons would weigh in at over 200 pounds.  See, e.g., “Denny Lyons Contract,” Cincinnati Enquirer, January 23, 1897, 2; “Denny Lyons’ Ambition,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 2, 1902.

19 “On Glouster’s Sands,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28, 1889, 6.

20 “Notes of the Diamond Field,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 15, 1889, 6.

21 “Talk of Big Baseball Deal,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 4, 1889, 6. 

22 “Luck Comes to the Athletics and They Beat Brooklyn,” Philadelphia Times, June 14, 1890, 2.

23 “They Won in the Ninth,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 14, 1890, 2.

24 “An Excuse for a Spree,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 17, 1890, 2.

25 “The Athletics Give a Disgraceful Exhibition and Are Snowed Under,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 29, 1890, 3.

26 “Athletic Stockholders Meet-Trying to Adjust Matters So That the Club May Go On,” Philadelphia Times, September 12, 1890, 2.

27 “Notes of the Diamond Field,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 4, 1890, 3.

28 Robert Tiemann, “Highlights from the Browns Last AA Season: A Mammoth Homer Run and a Perfect Game,” The National Pastime: A Review of Baseball History, SABR.org, retrieved at https://share.google/zZaoZpiUP0A96GCxW, September 26, 2025, p. 13.

29 Thomas J. Hetrick., Chris Von der Ahe and the St. Louis Browns (Clifton, Virginia: Pocol Press, 2016), 167-168.

30 See Jack Boyle’s SABR biography for more detail on the background to the incident.

31 “Fad in Ultimatums,” Chicago Tribune, January 31, 1892, 6.

32 Sporting Gossip, Chicago Inter Ocean), April 23, 1892, 6.

33 “Denny Lyons Makes Longest Hit Ever Seen at the Polo Grounds,” Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1892, 7.

34 Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 419.

35 “New York’s Management Will Take Decisive Action About Turning Out Poor Players,” The New York Tribune, September 11, 1892, 8; “Baseball Brevities,” New York Times, September 15, 1892, 3; Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 419.

36 “Connie Mack’s Great Head—He Engineers a Triple Play That Saves the Day,” Pittsburgh Post, May 25, 1893, 6.

37  “Denny Lyons Falls from Grace,” The Inter Ocean (Chicago), July 22, 1894, 10.

38 “Denny Lyons Falls from Grace.”

39 “Denny Lyons Falls from Grace.”  

40 “Telegraphic Notes of Sport,” Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1894, 6; “Rest Will Aid Them,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, July 23, 1894, 6.

41 “Von der Ahe May Have to Sell, Being Financially Embarrassed,” Washington (DC) Post, May 13, 1895, 6.

42 “Von Der Ahe’s Misfits- An Aggregation of ‘Has Beens’ Masquerading as the St. Louis Browns,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 2, 1895, 6.

43 “Yesterday’s Game,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 13, 1895, 7.

44 “Base-Ball Notes,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, January 20, 1896, 9.

45 “Lyons Accident Unprofitable,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 25, 1895, 8.

46 “The ‘Noes’ Had It,” Cleveland Leader, March 29, 1897, 3.

47 “The Team Left for Boston,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 27, 1895, 9.

48 “Lyons Released,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 28, 1895, 10.

49  “Base-Ball Notes,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, January 20, 1896, 9.

50 “Gone Back to Pittsburg—Denny Lyons Signs to Play with the Pirates,” The Sporting News, November 23, 1895, 1.

51 “Baseball Brevities,” Pittsburg Press, August 24, 1896, 5.

52 “Denny Lyons Released,” Pittsburg Press, July 26, 1897, 1.

53  Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 419.

54  “Denny Lyons’ Ambition,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 2, 1902, 10.

55  Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 419.

56  A report that Lyons was married, with a daughter and living in Cleveland in 1900, is not supported by city directory entries – which consistently list him as a resident of Cincinnati during the 1890s through 1900 – or by his death certificate, which lists him as single rather than married or divorced.

57 “Denny Lyons is in Pitiable Condition,” Washington (DC) Times Herald, August 30, 1911, 13.

58 “How the Teams Will Line Up in Lyons Benefit Game,” Cincinnati Post, October 4, 1911, 6.

59  Per Lyons’ death certificate.