1964 Topps #571 Gene Conley
About Gene Conley
His last NBA season, 46 games with the Knicks, ended early when New York let him go to spring training. The extra time did not help. The Red Sox released him on April 21, 1964, before he pitched a game, and Cleveland's Gabe Paul signed him the next day for one dollar and offered him a trial with the Indians' farm club at Burlington, North Carolina. Two outings there convinced Conley his shoulder was finished, and he retired. That makes 571 a curiosity, a high number in the seventh series that lists him with Cleveland, a club he never pitched for in the majors, and that reached collectors after he had already left the game.
Donald Eugene Conley, born November 10, 1930, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and raised in Richland, Washington, was a rarity in American sport: the only athlete to win championships in both major-league baseball and the NBA. A 6-foot-8 right-hander, he starred in baseball and basketball at Washington State and signed with the Boston Braves in 1950. He won Eastern League MVP honors at Hartford in 1951 and was named Minor League Player of the Year twice, the first player so honored. He broke in with the Braves in 1952, made All-Star teams in 1954 and 1955, and won a World Series ring with Milwaukee in 1957. A 1959 trade sent him to the Phillies, where another All-Star selection and a Comeback Player of the Year award followed, and he finished with the Boston Red Sox from 1961 through 1963. He closed with a 91-96 record, 888 strikeouts and a 3.82 ERA over eleven seasons. In six NBA seasons, mostly as a Celtics forward, he won three straight titles from 1959 through 1961, later playing for the New York Knicks. He and his wife Katie ran the Foxboro Paper Company in Massachusetts for more than three decades. Named to the Washington Sports Hall of Fame in 1979, Conley died July 4, 2017.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 235 | 3 | 33 | 110 | 57 | 20 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 9 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted.
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Related cards
Team card: #172 Cleveland Indians
More Cleveland Indians cards:
- #64 Ted Abernathy
- #77 Jerry Walker
- #105 Woody Held
- #122 Don McMahon
- #133 Jim Grant
- #146 Indians 1964 Rookie Stars
- #184 Al Luplow
- #199 Joe Azcue
- #216 Mike de la Hoz
- #234 Gary Bell
- #253 Wally Post
- #301 Larry Brown
- #317 Al Smith
- #338 Jack Kralick
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #571 card?
It is card #571 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Gene Conley of the Cleveland Indians.
Is 1964 Topps #571 a scarce card?
It is a high number card from the seventh print series, #523-587, distributed last. Scarcer than the rest of the set but only mildly so - the high premium runs roughly 55-60 percent, far milder than the 1952-62 highs.
How many cards are in the 1964 Topps Baseball set?
587 cards, tracked as 589 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 587 with no gaps, and no number carries two different cards; two cards - #4, the A.L. Pitching Leaders, and #517, the seventh-series checklist - carry a catalogued back variation that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, The Topps Archives, Baseball Almanac, Baseball-Reference, the SABR BioProject and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, PSA & SGC population reports. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-10-11.