Two sport champion, Gene Conley, dead at 86.

When you think of two sport super stars in Atlanta..... yeah, the mind tends to wander over to dual personality known as Neon and Prime Time.

And rightfully so. Who can forget the media coverage of Deion leaving one sports venue after a game, sprinting to a waiting helicopter to be carried off to another stadium and the start of another game.
Deion managed a Super Bowl win with Dallas and the 49ers, but lost in his only World Series appearance with the Braves. He would've been the third athlete to capture championships in two of the four major sports.


Meet the second athlete to have accomplished that feat. Gene Conley.

Gene played baseball as a pitcher from 1952 until 1963.

 He pitched in three All Star games, 1954, 1959 and was the winning pitcher in 1955. He won the World Series with Milwaukee in 1957.

Gene played for the Phillies and Red Sox late in his baseball career, but we don't care about that. These fabulous Braves cards are from my own personal collection. Jealous?

Gene also played pro basketball as a center for the Boston Celtics.

(I don't have any of his basketball cards.... don't know if he even has any...)

He played the bouncy ball in 1952/53 and then from 1957 to 1964. He won NBA Championships in 1958, 59, 60.
Yeah. He played both sports at the same time. Awesome.


As immortalized on the back of his '56 Topps card... Gene stood 6'8"

Gene is the only athlete to play on three professional sports teams from the same city.
Boston Braves
Boston Red Sox
Boston Celtics

Gene was also the last living player to have played for both the Boston Braves and the Boston Red Sox.



Gene Conley 10.11.1930 - 04.07.2017

Look! Actual cardboard! The kind that will actually burn!

another comc post. Yeah, I know. But hey! It's vintage! Everyone loves da vintage!

*ahem* Anyways... I managed to acquire six more 1956 Topps cards.

want to see them? Of course you do...

Gene Conley. All 6'8" of him. That's fairly commonplace now, but can you imagine seeing a 6'8" pitcher in 1956?
paid - $1.25

 by the way, Gene's cartoon mentions that he was a great basketball player in college. No doubt.

Chuck Tanner. Yeah the guy who managed the Pirates in the seventies. Oh, and Chuck is a #69 (giggity) and a gray back. According to the interwebs, #1-100 are more desirable in gray back form.
paid - $1.00

Ray Crone. Did you know that Ray had the game winning hit in the 10th inning to win his very first start? How many managers today would leave a rookie pitcher in his first start in that long?
paid - $2.30

Bob Roselli. ROOKIE CARD! You can tell by the monstrous rookie logo slapped willy nilly all over the front and back of the card.
Wait. What? There's no logo? Well then how did kids tell it was a valuable rookie card? Kinda like how did americans follow a black hockey puck on white ice before the Glowing Fox puck.
paid - $1.50

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny Logan!
paid $1.00

Danny O'Connell. Here we see second baseman O'Connell making the play at......... third? Huh?
Oh! That's actually Danny face down in the dirt. Looks like he's safe!
paid - $1.00

not a bad $8.05 if I do say so. I have no idea why I don't focus my entire comc sales money on buying the old stuff. Instead I grab all the shinies from the current players...... ah well. Every once in awhile I come to my senses and grab some old cardboard.