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While Conley was busy mowing down batters
for the Braves, Red Auerbach was busy configuring the Boston Celtics for its
championship run. The team had been mediocre at best prior to his 1950
arrival as head coach, and owner Walter Brown waited patiently for his young
coach to turn things around. The nucleus was there – Sharman and Cousy were
perennial All-Stars in the backcourt, while Macauley brought an offensive
punch to the frontline. Still, the Celtics struggled during the
mid-fifties, and the problems were easy to figure out; with no post play to
speak of, Auerbach found his scrappy team outrebounded on a nightly basis.
Sure, the Celtics could score, but they couldn’t stop an opponent with the
game on the line. Tough guys were added to the mix – Bob Brannum first, and
later “Jungle” Jim Loscutoff – but the team clearly needed help in the
paint. It needed a player of Conley’s stature, or, better yet, a player
with otherworldly defensive skills who would come to redefine the center
position in the NBA.
Or, in a perfect world, both.
The cosmos-altering trade of Macauley to the
St. Louis Hawks would come prior to the 1956 NBA Draft. In return, the
Celtics would get the draft rights to Bill Russell. The team’s fortunes
turned immediately, as Russell joined the team in December and promptly led
Boston to the 1957 NBA Championship. Conley, meanwhile, teamed with the
legendary Warren Spahn and a young Hank Aaron to lift the Braves into the
1957 World Series. Milwaukee defeated the vaunted New York Yankees 4-3 in
that October Classic. The victory completed a lifelong pursuit for Conley,
bringing him a championship and fulfilling the dream that had started all
those years ago in Muskogee. Still, he kept his pulse on basketball and the
Boston Celtics. The team now had a center for the ages to go along with
players such as Frank Ramsey and Tommy Heinsohn. Conley could sense that
something special was brewing in Beantown, and he desperately wanted to be a
part of it all.
Conley’s 1958 season would be his last in a
Milwaukee uniform. It would also be his worst. Beset by injury, he would
go 0-6 and find himself once again tempted by Auerbach and the Celtics.
This time, Conley followed his heart. He joined the team against the wishes
of Braves management, playing 50 games as Russell’s “backup”, oftentimes
playing alongside him and helping to clog the middle. The Celtics, in turn,
rebounded from the disappointment of the 1958 NBA Finals, defeating the
Hawks for a second title in three seasons. Improbably, Conley was a world
champion in both basketball and baseball.
The run to an NBA title was not without
drama for Conley. On March 31, 1959, the Braves traded their towering
pitcher, along with infielders Joe Koppe and Harry Hanebrink, to the
Philadelphia Phillies for catcher Stan Lopata, shortstops Ted Kazanski and
Johnny O'Brien. The move was prompted, in part, by Conley’s nagging
injuries, but the bigger reason centered on his refusal to give up
basketball.
Conley went 12-7 for the Phillies in ’59,
and then wasted little time in joining his Celtic teammates in a quest to
repeat as champions. Phillies ownership did its best to stop Conley from
rejoining the Celtics, but the attempts were futile. Boston, with Conley in
the fold, finished 59-16 and topped the Hawks 4-3 in the 1960 NBA Finals.
He followed the title run by joining the Phillies for spring training, and
then stumbled to an 8-14 record with a 3.68 ERA, prompting yet another
offseason trade, this time to the Boston Red Sox. Suddenly, Conley found
himself playing two sports in the same city.
The 1960-61 Celtics captured a third
straight NBA Championship, with Conley a key contributor. Nine days later
he pitched the Red Sox to victory, burnishing his legend in a city obsessed
with baseball. That fall the team left him unprotected in the expansion
draft. Conley found himself selected by the Chicago Bulls. It was not the
sequence of events that he had envisioned, especially with things going so
well with the Celtics, and he grudgingly took a year off from basketball
rather than shuffle his children between two time zones.
Conley won a career-high 15 games for the
Red Sox in 1962. That year, in a New York traffic jam, Conley and infielder
Pumpsie Green deserted their team bus. Green reported to the team hotel the
next evening, but Conley remained AWOL nearly three days, unsuccessfully
trying to fly to Israel.
“I don't know why I did it," Conley later
said, and while more than a few baseball fans questioned his sanity, Conley
himself recognized the culprit behind his high profile disappearance:
Alcohol.
Since high school, Conley had drank heavily
– wine first, then beer in college, then liquor on those long road trips
away from home in the minor leagues. He was able to control his habit for
the most part, performing well even when hung over from too much to drink
the night before. But his New York disappearance – and his bizarre
explanation afterwards – only added fuel to the rumor mill. The three lost
days were a mixture of heavy drinking and soul searching, as Conley went so
far as to purchase a plane ticket to Israel, only to fail in his attempt due
to the lack of a valid passport. In his mind, the trip would have provided
him a cathartic release from the demons in the bottle. Instead, he found
himself the most talked-about man in baseball. He reappeared clearly
ashamed of what he had done – so ashamed, in fact, that he contemplated
retirement from sports altogether. He knew that his life needed to change,
and that professional sports might not be the best environment in his battle
over alcoholism. But first there was the task at hand: Reporting back the
Red Sox and owning up to his mistakes.
The Red Sox fined Green $1,000 for his
disappearance. Conley was suspended without pay, fined $2,000, out an
additional $2,000 for the plane ticket, and faced with irreparable harm to
his reputation. Despite this, he kept his chin up and persevered, and, in
the process, showed a championship mettle that extended well beyond anything
he had ever accomplished as a professional athlete. He addressed the media,
admitted that his disappearance had been a terrible mistake, and expressed
an interest in returning to the Red Sox – if the team still wanted him on
its roster. It did. While not exactly in the team’s good graces, Conley
nonetheless returned to finish the season with a 15-14 record and a 3.95
ERA. (Had Boston been able to conjure any type of run support, few doubted
that Conley, pitching as well as he had at any point in his career, would
have had a legitimate shot at winning 20 games.) He also signed on with the
New York Knicks, resurrecting his basketball career in the Big Apple,
averaging a career-high 9.0 points over 70 strong games. He would pitch 7
more games for the Red Sox in 1963, and play one more season for the Knicks,
before retiring from both sports and turning his attention to the business
world. Over the years he would continue his quest for inner peace, finding
it only after giving his life over to Jesus Christ. He also lobbied
successfully for an NBA pension for pre-1965 players, something he regards
with a source of great pride.
Today, Conley’s double-feature championship
haul remains unequaled, and his youthful optimism remains unbowed. He and
his wife, Katie (author of ‘One of a Kind – The Gene Conley Story),
split their time between homes in New England and Florida. They have three
very successful children who remain committed to the field of medicine (one
doctor and two nurses), and seven beautiful grandchildren.
Celtic
Nation is honored to bring you this interview.
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