The Louisville Courier-Journal caught up with Colonels Captain John O’Brien “in a talkative mood” before the 1896 season, and the 29-year-old second baseman shared his philosophy on spring training:
“I don’t think all the men should be worked hard. Some of them are down to weight already. As for myself, I will work off about seven pounds and then I will be down to a good playing weight. I have looked over the players who have arrived in the city and find that most of them are already trained down.”
John O’Brien
O’Brien said Fred Clarke, Tom Morrison, and Herm McFarland “don’t look like they need a bit of training.”
O’Brien cautioned against “too much training,” and cited the example of William “Yale” Murphy, the Ivy League graduate who spent the two previous seasons with the New York Giants:
”He was trained down until he was a mere shadow and was so weak he could not play good ball.”
O’Brien said when Jack Doyle took over as manager of the Giants in June of 1895, he tried to undo the damage to Murphy:
“Doyle made him drink Bass Ale, and that was wonderfully strengthening. In fact, I think an occasional glass of beer after a hard day’s training helps a man wonderfully. Don’t understand me to mean by that I believe in ‘lushing.’ A player who drinks whiskey or who drinks so much beer that he can feel the effects of it, is no man for a ball team. I have tried a glass of beer after a game, when I was hot and worn out, and I tell you it did me good.”
Doyle’s plan appears to have not worked; Murphy who hit .272 as a rookie in 1894, ended the 1895 season with a .202 average, and the remainder of his major league career consisted of just eight hitless at bats in 1897.
Yale Murphy
O’Brien predicted big things for the Colonels:
“I believe we will have a winning team…I know there is good material in the team, not counting the new men. The newly signed players all look like ‘top-notchers.’ My private opinion of the outfield (expected to be Clarke, McFarland, and Ducky Holmes) is that it will prove to be the best in the League. There is no fear on that score. The pitching department seems good, and I know the backstops are strong.”
O’Brien was mistaken, the ’96 Colonels were even worse than they were the previous season. When O’Brien was traded to the Washington Senators on July 3, the team was 11-44, and finished the season 38-93.
O’Brien apparently got himself into shape, he was hitting .339 on the day of the trade, eight-five points above his career average; he hit just .267 after the trade.
Baseball History Daily 
I didn’t realize that the term “lush / lushing” had been around for that long.