Ĭonnors is one of 13 athletes to have played in both the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball. He played 53 games for Boston before leaving the team early in the 1947–48 season. He did so during pre-game practice before the Celtics' first home game of their inaugural season with a shot and not a slam dunk, which is what typically breaks a backboard in modern basketball.
Superman sidekick conner professional#
During his tenure with Celtics in 1946, Connors became the first professional basketball player to break a backboard. For the 1946-1947 season he joined the newly formed Boston Celtics of the Basketball Association of America.
Professional basketball (1946–1948) įollowing his military discharge in 1946, the 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) Connors joined the Rochester Royals (now the Sacramento Kings) of the National Basketball League for their 1945-1946 championship season. įollowing his time in the Army, Connors played for the Newport News Dodgers ( Piedmont League) in 1946, the Mobile Bears ( Southern Association) in 1947, the Montreal Royals ( International League) from 1948 through 1950, and the Los Angeles Angels (PCL) ( Pacific Coast League) in 19. Released, he sat out the 1941 season, then signed with the New York Yankees farm team, the Norfolk Tars ( Piedmont League), where he played 72 games before enlisting in the Army at Fort Knox, Kentucky, at the end of the season, on October 10, 1942. In 1940, following his departure from college, Connors played four baseball games with the Brooklyn Dodgers' minor league team, the Newport Dodgers ( Northeast Arkansas League). Sports career Minor League Baseball (1940–1952) During most of the war, he served as a tank-warfare instructor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and later at West Point in New York. He played on two minor league teams (see below) in 19, then joined the United States Army following America's entrance into World War II. Ĭonnors left Seton Hall after two years to accept a contract to play professional baseball. He would repeatedly yell to the pitcher from his position on first base, "Chuck it to me, baby! Chuck it to me!" The rest of his teammates and spectators at the university's games soon caught on, and the nickname stuck. The name derived from his time as a player on Seton Hall's baseball team. He tried using "Lefty" and "Stretch" before finally settling on "Chuck". Since childhood, Connors had disliked his first name, Kevin, and he had sought another name. There, he played both basketball and baseball for the school, and it was there, too, where he changed his name. įrom those offers, he chose to attend Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. He received offers for athletic scholarships from more than two dozen colleges and universities. A talented athlete, he earned a scholarship to the Adelphi Academy, a preparatory school in Brooklyn, where he graduated in 1939. Ĭonnors was a devoted fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers despite their losing record during the 1930s, and he hoped to join the team one day. Raised as a Catholic, he served as an altar boy at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn. His father became a citizen of the United States in 1914 and was working in Brooklyn in 1930 as a longshoreman and his mother had also attained her U.S. He had one sibling, a sister, Gloria, who was two years his junior. Early life and education Ĭonnors was born on April 10, 1921, in Brooklyn, New York City, the elder of two children born to Marcella ( née Londrigan) and Alban Francis "Allan" Connors, immigrants of Irish descent from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Superman sidekick conner series#
With a 40-year film and television career, he is best known for his five-year role as Lucas McCain in the highly rated ABC series The Rifleman (1958–63). He is one of only 13 athletes in the history of American professional sports to have played in both Major League Baseball ( Brooklyn Dodgers 1949, Chicago Cubs, 1951) and the National Basketball Association ( Boston Celtics 1946–48). Kevin Joseph Aloysius " Chuck" Connors (Ap– November 10, 1992) was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player.
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