Chuck Connors

Kevin Joseph Connors, known as Chuck Connors, was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on April 10, 1921 and died on November 10, 1992. He was an American actor and a professional basketball and baseball player, one of only 13 athletes in the history of American professional sports to have played in both the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball. After attending Seton Hall University, where he played both sports and where the nickname Chuck began, he played minor league baseball, served in the United States Army during the Second World War, and then joined the Boston Celtics for their first season in 1946. He is credited as the first professional basketball player to break a backboard, in pregame practice before the Celtics' first home game. He later played one game for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949 and appeared in 66 games as a first baseman for the Chicago Cubs in 1951. His forty-year film and television career followed, and he is best known as Lucas McCain in the series The Rifleman.