Kick Kelly

Playing career Kelly played just one season in the National League in , split between two teams, the Syracuse Stars, for which he played in ten games, eight of them at catcher, and then another six games with the Troy Trojans. He played in 16 total games, had a .155 batting average, and scored five runs.

Kelly's record of 587 career games as an umpire was broken by Bob Ferguson in . He finished his umpiring career in 1897, after eight seasons and 626 games. At one point in his career, he departed to enjoy a short run as manager of the Louisville Colonels in and 1888.

Boxing career Kelly became a championship boxing referee, officiating Jim Corbett's only successful defense of his heavyweight title against Charley Mitchell on January 25, 1894, in Jacksonville, Florida. In the second round, after Mitchell had begun the fight with constant slurs directed at Corbett, the champion landed a blow to Mitchell's head after he had been knocked to the mat. Mitchell's corner called for a foul, but the presence of numerous spectators brandishing guns and eager to defend their bets led Kelly to dismiss the complaint; he later confided that he had been lucky to leave Jacksonville alive. He also called the heavyweight fight between Corbett and Tom Sharkey on November 22, 1898, in New York, which ended in controversy when one of Corbett's cornermen jumped into the ring in the ninth round. Kelly announced that although Corbett had lost the fight on the foul, all bets were off. On July 3, 1899, in Buffalo, New York, Kelly refereed the bout in which Frank Erne won a 20-round decision to take the world lightweight title from Kid Lavigne.

Kelly died in Malba, Queens, at the age of 69, and is interred at the Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, New York.