Chuck Connors

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Full Name: Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors Primary Position: 1B Height/Weight: 6' 5"/190 First Game: May 1, 1949 Birthdate: April 10, 1921 Final Game: September 30, 1951 Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York MLB Experience: 1 year Died: November 10, 1992 Deathplace: Los Angeles, California Bat/Throw: Left/Left

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Chuck Connors may be better known as being the star of The Rifleman, but he was also a Major League Baseball player and a basketball player in the NBA. He was born Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors on April 21, 1921. While playing for Seton Hall, he picked up the nickname Chuck for telling the infielders to chuck it to him at first base.

After playing four games in Class D Northeast Arkansas League in the Los Angeles Dodgers farm system, he decided he wanted to play college sports at Seton Hall. In 1942, he was signed by the New York Yankees, but never played a Major League game for them. He joined the Army that year, and for the next three years was a stateside tank training instructor. After being discharged from the Army, he played for the Rochester Royals who would later become the Cincinnati Royals and Kansas City Kings and today are the Sacramento Kings.

The Yankees asked waivers on Connors and he was picked up by the Dodgers again and sent to Newport News of the Piedmont League where he led the league in home runs in 1946 with 17. He played for the Boston Celtics in the 1946-1947 season, but his stats were nothing to brag about with him being a dismal 94 for 380 from the floor and 39 for 84 from the charity line.

His claim to fame in the NBA is that he was the first player to break the glass backboard through no fault of his own, as a very important part of the backboard was missing, and he took a simple set shot that shattered the board. The game was being played at the Boston Arena (not the Boston Garden since a Gene Autry rodeo was being held there). As luck would have it, the backboards were stored in an area behind the bulls, but luckily two drunken cowboys were found and paid a couple of bucks who dodged the bulls and brought out the backboard they needed.

Connors had an excellent Minor League career but in the majors he batted one time for the Dodgers before being traded to the Chicago Cubs, where he also had a lackluster season in 1951 hitting 2 home runs and driving in only 18 runs while hitting .239. He never played in the majors again, but he had fun playing in the Pacific Coast League for the Los Angeles Angels. The following paragraph from his SABR bio project page shows how much fun he had while playing:

He played the 1952 season with the Los Angles Angels, where he is best remembered for his showboating than his playing ability. For example, after hitting one home run, he slid into second base, cart wheeled to third base, then crawled to home plate. These antics added to his "screwball" reputation, where at various times in his minor-league career he threw raw hamburger to rowdy fans at a road game and taunted umpires with Shakespearean quotes.

Connors had a great line about Branch Rickey, the Dodgers owner. "He had money and players and didn't want to see them mix." He received his first big break in Old Yeller when he played Burn Sanderson the owner of the dog. The highlight of his acting career will always be the five years he played Lucas McCain on The Rifleman. He was smart enough to get ten percent of the profits from the show and the show can still be seen in reruns today.

Connors also got involved in politics and the following paragraph from his SABR bio project page tells the story much better than I could:

Connors was active in Republican politics in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a strong supporter of fellow Californian Richard Nixon, who was elected President in 1968, and fellow-actor Ronald Reagan, who was elected governor of California in 1966 and later was elected President in 1980. Connors had a celebrated meeting with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1973, after meeting him at a party at Nixon's Western White House in San Clemente, California. "Spotting Mr. Connors in a denim shirt at the helicopter pad, Mr. Brezhnev rushed over and threw his arms around the tall rugged star, who hugged back and lifted the laughing Communist party leader off his feet," the New York Times reported the greeting. The Connors/Brezhnev bear hug was captured by photographers and ran in many newspapers across the nation.

Connors may not have been a very good baseball player, but attributes his acting success to playing in Los Angeles in the minors and making the connections he needed to get his acting career started. He was told that he could have been the Dodgers first baseman if not for Gil Hodges, but Connors said Hodges could have been The Rifleman so he is happy with the way things turned out.

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• Signed as an amateur free agent by Brooklyn Dodgers (1940).
• Traded by Brooklyn Dodgers with Dee Fondy to Chicago Cubs in exchange for Hank Edwards and cash (October 10, 1950).

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