The Gene Conley Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, May 30th,
2006
That same year (1950) you starred for the Cougars in basketball, leading the
PAC-8 in scoring and leading Washington State to the All Coast Championship Game
against UCLA. What stands out in your mind after all these years.
I
was the starting center during my sophomore year, and I led the PAC-8 Northern
Division in scoring that season. I believe George Yardley was the leading
scorer in the Southern Division. George was just an outstanding basketball
player from Stanford. He was also very flamboyant. He went on to have a fine
career as a professional, and ended up being inducted into the hall-of-fame.
It was during this period that I got acquainted with Bill Sharman. I was playing against Johnny Wooden’s team on Westwood Court, and Bill, who was going to school at USC at the time, happened to be in the stands, watching us square off against the Bruins. It turned out to be good for my career; Bill later went to the Boston Celtics, and he told Red Auerbach that he remembered me playing a good game against UCLA, and that I might be a fine prospect. Back then, that’s how the majority of the recruiting was done – word of mouth. Bill saw me play, and Red trusted the advice of his players. It really worked out well for me.
As an aside, Bill Sharman was a great all-around athlete. I’ve often told him that between Bill Sharman and Jackie Robinson, I just don’t know who would be the best all around athlete ever. I still don’t know, but it has to be between those two guys – unless it’s Jim Thorpe, but I’ve often told Bill that I won’t go back that far to find someone better [laughs].
Anyway, when Bill joined the Celtics in 1951, he was also playing minor league baseball in the Brooklyn Dodger organization. I was playing at Hartford, for the Braves minor league team in the Eastern League. I ended up being named minor league player-of-the-year, and they moved me up to AAA the next season. That’s when I ran into Bill Sharman. I really didn’t remember him from the basketball game against UCLA, and I also didn’t remember him from any of our other minor league encounters. But he remembered coming to bat against me when he was with the St. Paul Saints of the Dodger organization. That was in the American Association. When he saw me on the mound, he recognized me as the center of that Washington State team that had played UCLA. So that’s when he got hold of Red Auerbach. He told Red that he remembered me as a sophomore, that I was playing minor league baseball, and that I might be interested in playing some basketball for the Celtics. That’s how I became a professional basketball player.
You have
been inducted into the Washington State University Athletic Hall of Fame.
Where does this honor rank in terms of your athletic achievements?
Well,
you’re so young when all of these happen. I was only a sophomore when I
left school – I didn’t finish college. I wasn’t college material to start
with [laughs]. I didn’t really make much out of it at the time. College,
to me, was just a chance to play ball [laughs], and that’s why I went up
there – to play sports. At that time I wasn’t even thinking of professional
sports – I was just having fun competing on the basketball court against
Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, and all of the other schools on our
basketball schedule. And there was the baseball, and I really enjoyed
that. But as far as being selected to the WSU hall-of-fame, I just really
wasn’t there long enough for me to make a big deal out of it.
Following
your sophomore season, you signed a professional baseball contract with the
Boston Braves. Please take me back to this period in your life.
I
really didn’t give professional sports a thought, at least not until around
the time that we won the Northern Division in baseball. I had played
baseball when I was eighteen or nineteen years old in a place called Walla
Walla, Washington, for the Walla Walla Bears. It was semipro ball, and it
was fast-pitch ball, and we played teams like the Spokane Indians, who had a
lot of really good players – which really helped my development as a
pitcher. And there was a reason the competition was so good: Back in the
late 1940s, minor league players didn’t make much money at all. In fact,
they barely made enough to survive on, so a lot of them would also play
independent, semipro ball just to help make ends meet. They would pick up
$35 to $40 per game. So in those days I was really getting good
competition, because those guys were professionals.
A lot of scouts would watch those games because there were some terrific ballplayers out there. And that’s when they started watching me. Actually, I was doing all of this illegally because I was going to school on scholarship and picking up thirty-five bucks a game for playing semipro ball [laughs]. The guy who sponsored it owned a jewelry store, and I would go down to the jewelry store and he would pay me under the table [laughs]. Anyway, I didn’t realize the scouts were following me as a pitcher. They were also there when we went to the nationals, which is now known as the College World Series, and that’s when they started talking to me about the possibility of playing professional baseball. And then they started coming to the house. Do you remember the name Ben Chapman? He played with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig for a number of years with the New York Yankees. Or Tommy Bridges, who played for Detroit? They were great pitchers in their day. They were scouts for major league teams because those were some of the only jobs you could get if you wanted to stay in baseball after your playing days were done. They all thought I had a shot at playing professional ball.
Well,
before it was over I had all of these offers to play pro ball with Detroit,
the Yankees, and a number of others. I didn’t really give it much thought
at first. I wasn’t too interested in playing pro ball, but after thinking
about it I realized that I didn’t enjoy college all that much, either
[laughs]. So I thought, ‘Maybe this will be kind of fun.’ Once I took it
seriously they started talking to my father about it, and trying to convince
him that I would really like playing professional sports. That’s something
that my wife, Katie, still laughs about. She says, ‘Your dad wasn’t too
smart. You had a chance to get a $20,000 bonus with Detroit, and he made
you turn it down because he wanted you to sign with the Boston Braves. He
said you’d be better there because Johnny Sain and Warren Spahn were
over-the-hill, and you’d have a better chance of making the team.’ Come to
find out, those guys were still pitching after I was through. On top of
that, I only got $6,000 as a bonus!
You were
twice honored as the Minor League Player of the Year by Sporting News
– before breaking in with the Milwaukee Braves in 1954. Please tell me
about your transition from minor league prospect to big league starting
pitcher.
First
of all, I felt that they moved me into the major leagues too quickly. I
played minor league ball at Hartford, which was A ball, and pretty good ball
at that. In those days it was known as the Eastern League. It was fast – a
lot of big name ballplayers got their start in the Eastern League, and
eventually ended up playing in the major leagues. I had such a good year
that they thought I might be ready for the majors. I was just a kid, barely
21, when I took the mound against the Brooklyn Dodgers the next season. I
was frightened to death! They had Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese and Lou
Campanella. I did okay, but I was so nervous that I really wasn’t pitching
the way that I could. So they sent me back to the minor leagues right away,
to AAA ball where I could get used to that level of competition. I did
quite well in AAA – it wasn’t the same level of play as the majors, but it
was very fast. I was able to find my niche against some good competition –
a lot of the players were on the verge of going up, or they were just coming
down. So I did excel there, with Toledo. I won 23 games, so they knew that
I was good enough to play in the big leagues.