Posted on 07/06/2017 1:15:08 PM PDT by EveningStar
All professional athletes dream of winning a championship. But only two have won championships in two major American professional sports. Gene Conley was one of them.
Conley, who died at 86 on Tuesday at his home in Foxborough, Mass., pitched for the World Series champion Milwaukee Braves in 1957. At 6 feet 8 inches — he was the tallest pitcher in the major leagues at the time — he also carved out a parallel career in professional basketball, playing during baseball’s off-season and winning three N.B.A. titles with the Boston Celtics, from 1958 to 1961.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Wow! I have his baseball card.
You don’t hear of too many guys this tall (6ft, 8) living for so long.
Good for him to have enjoyed a long full life.
Who was the 2nd?
Thanks for the links. Can’t believe I haven’t heard of him (or forgot, which is believable since it happens more lately :).
Coming from NYT, I thought it may be talking about a 5’2” (even though they said 6’8”) individual of unspecified gender (though they said male) who brought water to the players and was given credit for MLB/NBA titles by NYT for “gender bravery” while assisting championship teams. You can’t tell which stories are real and which are fake so need to question everything.
Sigh, the passing of another one of the boys of summer. I believe that the late Dave DeBusschere shared the dual MLB-NBA connection with Conley, but was not really accomplished in baseball.
RIP, Gene Conley. I do vaguely remember him from the earliest days that I followed baseball for being the dual sport player and also for graduating from Washington State University which was in my neck of the woods.
I looked at several articles about Conley's passing. I selected the NYT article to post because I thought it was the best.
RIP.
> I selected the NYT article to post because I thought it was the best.
It was a good choice. I just found myself thinking “fake news” as I read it. So really appreciated the other links too. Thanks.
Looking at the numbers, I venture the opinion that he would have been better in either sport had he forsaken one of them.
The article cites Otto Graham who played baseball and football but only one year. I was going to guess Danny Ainge but the Blue Jays were not a playoff team in his years there 1979-1981.
I won’t click NYT articles. I was guessing Dion Sanders. Thanks for the info.
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