The Gene Conley Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, May 30th,
2006
That same year (1952), you joined the Boston Celtics, teaming with future
Hall-of-Fame players Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman and “Easy” Ed Macauley. Please
tell me something about each of these men.
When
Sharman told Red about me, you gotta remember that I hadn’t played basketball
since my sophomore year in college. Three years had passed since I’d picked up
a basketball. It was the furthest thing from my mind. Then Auerbach called me,
told me that Sharman had thought I’d be a good fit, and wanted to know if I was
interested in trying out for the Boston Celtics. I told him that it sounded
interesting and that I’d have to think about, because I’d never heard of the
Celtics. He told me about Sharman and so forth, and he invited me to come
tryout for the team just in case I ever decided that I wanted to play
professional basketball. Well, in those days you didn’t make a whole lot of
money playing minor league baseball, even at the AAA level. I was making $400 a
month playing minor league ball, so I told my wife about the offer. I told her
I might try out, and try to pick up some extra money during the offseason.
So I went back to Boston and got a shocker there, too. I hadn’t played that level of competition – George Mikan was still in the league – and there was Cousy, and Sharman, and Macauley. These were great ballplayers, and I got a quick lesson on what professional basketball was all about. But I did make the team. Auerbach thought I was a prospect. But I mostly rode the bench for half a season, and then he cut me loose so that I could go ahead and report to spring training. The Celtics were good that year, but we weren’t going to win a championship, so Auerbach agreed to let me return to baseball. Not that I’d help them that much at that point, but it was still a nice gesture on his part. And that was the end of my basketball career, until about six years later.
Red
Auerbach once described you as “the toughest guy I’ve ever had in a fight”,
high praise from arguably the greatest basketball coach in history. What
was it like to meet Red for the first time, and what was it like to play for
him?
[Laughs].
My first season with the team I didn’t play that much, and I didn’t really
know him that well. Most of the time I’d get in the game when it was almost
over. Then when I decided to stick with baseball – I’d had such a good year
in ’53 as the minor league player-of-the-year, I didn’t think I’d ever pick
up a basketball again. So I really didn’t get to know him until 1958, when
I rejoined the team for my second go ‘round as a Celtic.
Like I said, I honestly didn’t think I’d play basketball again. We won the pennant in ’57 and bought our first home in Milwaukee, and I think we got $8,300 per player for winning the World Series. We thought we were the richest people in the world [laughs]. In ’58 I had a lousy year – I had a little bit of arm trouble, but not much – and I ended up in the bullpen. Nowadays they call them setup men; in our day I called them the guys that couldn’t pitch! Or the guys that come in after the starter fails. But that’s what I did most of the year, and I didn’t like it at all. I was used to starting all of the time. I had already proven that I could pitch as a starter, because I’d been in two All-Star games by this point in my career. So I didn’t pitch at all that season, and they wanted to cut my salary by 25%. I said to my wife, ‘Boy, we’re not doing too good money-wise, so I’m gong to call this guy Auerbach that I used to play basketball for in Boston – maybe he can get me a job.’
So I got on the phone and I called Red. I said, ‘I wonder if you could use me as a basketball player.’ He said, ‘Oh, Gene – you haven’t been playing for all of these years, and you don’t have any experience. You’ve been playing baseball. We’ve still got Cousy and Bill Sharman. We’ve got Bill Russell and Sam Jones. We’ve got Tommy Heinsohn. We’ve got All-Americans. I’ll be honest, I don’t think you’d have a chance.’ I said, ‘Well, will you give me a chance?’ He said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll pay your way back here to Boston, but if you don’t make the team you’ve got to figure out your own way home.’ That’s the way he dealt [laughs]. I thought, well, that’s fair enough. So I packed up a footlocker and told my wife, ‘Honey, we need the money. I’m going to try and make the team.’
So I filled up my footlocker and went back to Boston. I went into the old Boston Garden and I worked my way up to the office of Walter Brown, who was the owner of the team. He had his door open. There was Walter, Red, and a whole bunch of sports writers sitting around Walter’s desk. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I walked into the office with this great big footlocker. Walter Brown said, ‘Red, I don’t know if he’s going to make the team, but it sure looks like he’s planning to stay awhile.’ [Laughs]. The room erupted – everybody got a big laugh out of that.
Anyway, it was tough to make the team. Those guys were all really, really good. They had just won the championship two years before that. They probably would have won the year before I got there, but Russell had turned his ankle early in the Finals against St. Louis. If it weren’t for that, they probably would have had two world championships before I joined them.
Somehow I made the team. I was older then, and more mature, and I was a whole lot stronger. By that time I was 27 years old. I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I’d been through a lot of big league baseball. I wasn’t flustered by the big names – nobody impressed me that way anymore. So I started competing. I think that’s how Red got that idea about me being tough. I did get better, I stayed through the playoffs with him, and he wanted me back the next year. And then the following year he wanted me back again. That was when Wilt Chamberlain came into the league.
I really think a lot of the NBA players resented a baseball player coming in and playing professional basketball in their league. They had played basketball in college, and many of them had been All-Americans, and here comes this baseball player trying to play their sport. I think they thought I was trying to show off, but that was hardly the case. I had three kids by then, and I desperately needed the money. I didn’t have a chip on my shoulder because of the way they were treating me, but I definitely felt that they were picking on me a little bit. Maybe I shouldn’t have thought that way, but I did. Consequently, I had to put my fist up against a few of them. I think Red kind of liked it [laughs].
I take it
that the two of you got along famously.
I
always had a good relationship with Red. I really did. My family was back
in Milwaukee and the kids were in school, and I stayed at the Lennox Hotel
when I was in Boston and playing with the team. Red did, too. That was
where he stayed during the season, when he wasn’t back home in Washington,
DC. I was on one floor and he was on another. I didn’t have a car or
anything, so I used to ride a lot with him over to the practices. Or I’d
ride with him over to the Garden for games. Sometimes we’d pick up Walter
Brown on the way. I’d sit in the back seat and we’d talk about everything.
So I got to know Red real well.
I’ve
heard that Red was quite the driver. Bob Cousy told me about some of those
preseason barnstorming trips throughout New England.
Oh….you
definitely didn’t want to ride with him more than necessary! I called
myself a rookie when I rejoined the team in ’58, and I was with KC Jones one
time – we had an exhibition game in Hartford – and they had just put in the
Mass Turnpike. They were just coming out with all of those Howard Johnson
restaurants around this time. It seemed like they were everywhere. Well,
we were on our way back from Hartford, and Red was driving on the Turnpike.
He was going about 70 miles-per-hour – I’m in the front seat, KC’s in the
back, and of course we’re both scared to death – and I said, ‘Boy, we’re
really flying along here, Red.’ Of course he wouldn’t say anything – he
just smoked that cigar and kept driving like a wild man, changing lanes,
whipping in and out of traffic – and all of a sudden he turned off to the
right. He flew around one of those Howard Johnsons, shot through the back
lot of a filling station, and then roared back up onto the Turnpike. I
don’t think he let up on the gas one bit. KC and I both swore we’d never
ride with him again!