Heart of a ‘Lyons’
July 11, 2003
By NICK SCHWIEN
Hays Daily News
As the cloud of dust finally began to settle on that hot summer night, Mark Lyons came into focus.
But instead of grinning ear to ear after successfully advancing a base, his look was quite the opposite.
Lyons wasn’t moving like he normally would. He didn’t jump to his feet. Didn’t smile. Didn’t step off the base and brush off the dirt.
Instead, the outfielder for the Hays Larks was in pain, having injured his left knee.
It was the start of a new part of Lyons’ life — one that wouldn’t involve running the base paths every day.
Lyons finished out the rest of the summer season of 2001 with the Larks, but he reinjured the knee in his next college season. The torn anterior cruciate ligament and tears in his menisci ended his collegiate season.
And Lyons was left — for the first time — looking from the outside in.
“It was amazing,” said Lyons, who has mostly played in center field for the Larks this summer. “I’d never sat in baseball before, and it was extremely hard. But I got smarter. I got to look at the game from a different view. I got a natural feel for it with seeing it from a different view.”
So after missing significant time from baseball, Lyons is back — and starting to hit his usual form.
His average has started to rise. His stolen bases are up. His play in the outfield is nothing short of spectacular.
“He’s battled back,” said Hays manager Frank Leo. “He had a real tough knee injury where he tore his ACL and missed all of last year. It’s taken hard work and a lot of effort for him to get back. That’s a hard injury to get back from. …”
Now, Lyons says the knee is back to 100 percent after the injury two years ago.
“It’s definitely good just knowing I can play 100 percent,” said Lyons, who went through nearly six weeks of strength and conditioning in the rehabilitation process. “I have nothing to lose now. If it tears again, it tears again.”
While his numbers offensively have started to rise, his play in the outfield has remained superb. You wouldn’t know he had suffered a severe knee injury by the way he runs down a line drive in the gap, snagging it just before it falls in for a base hit.
But it took time for Lyons to get back into the full swing of things.
After transferring from Duquesne University in Pennsylvania to College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. — because he had always dreamed of playing baseball in the southern part of the country — the outfielder started to work back into everyday form.
“He was very tentative when he first came out,” said College of Charleston head coach John Pawlowski. “He was tentative in the outfield and at the plate. But once he started to get confidence, he really turned things around.
“He came off the injury from the year before and worked extremely hard to get his knee back in shape. He’s a kid that worked hard.”
After a red-shirt season, Lyons hit .313 for Pawlowski while seeing time in the outfield and at designated hitter. He scored 35 runs, finished with 16 RBIs, had four doubles, two triples and four home runs — all with aluminum bats.
Lyons, a 6-foot-1, 190-pounder, helped the NCAA Division I Cougars finish the year with a 31-27 overall record and a 17-13 mark in the Southern Conference. He played in 49 games, starting 25.
“He’s one of those kids that’s a pretty good hitter, plays good in the outfield,” Pawlowski said. “He comes ready to practice and play.”
That may be a big reason why it didn’t take Lyons long to get back on the field.
“He’s proof to the other players when he didn’t sit around and moan and groan about the injury,” Leo said. “He went out and did something about it ...”
Through 30 games, Lyons is hitting .233 with eight RBIs, six doubles and two home runs with the wooden bats this summer. He’s also stolen 10 bases this year. Through the first 15 games, he was hitting only .182 for Hays.
“The big thing this summer is doing for me is helping me really get back into it,” Lyons said. “At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t quite back yet. This summer, I’ve started to get back into it. … ”
During the 2001 season with the Larks, the Pennsylvania native finished the year with a .273 average, 28 RBIs and 12 stolen bases. The Larks finished second, part of back-to-back runner-up finishes at the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita.
“He brings that to the table,” Leo said about Lyons’ postseason experience. “He’s been through the experience of a World Series. He knows you can do it with defense and stolen bases and knows what it takes down there.”
But for now, Lyons will just relish the fact he’s back playing the game he loves. He just doesn’t plan on looking on from the outside again.
“I never really got to look at the game,” he said. “It showed me you have to be thankful for what you have. As the saying goes, you never really appreciate what you have until it’s gone. I guess I got a glimpse of that.”