As the star of television's The Rifleman, Chuck Connors portrayed a widowed rancher and loving father who—besides routinely dispatching would-be killers with his trusty Winchester—never wavered when it came to protecting outsiders and the dissimilar from purveyors of intolerance. Several episodes feature storylines about the spread of xenophobic attitudes toward Chinese and Hispanic settlers, with the virtuous Lucas McCain never failing to set things right. Off-screen, Connors' sense of justice and equality was just as strong. On more than one occasion during his nine-year pro baseball career, the 6-foot-6 inch, 190-pound Goliath stood up in defense of African American players.
As a member of the 1948 Montreal Royals, Connors found himself playing alongside a young Don Newcombe who, like Jackie Robinson, was under strict orders from Branch Rickey to refrain from fighting back if provoked. During a game versus Syracuse, Newk uncorked an "unintentional" brushback pitch that further enraged an already belligerent batsman who proceeded to charge the mound like a bull out of the chute. Careful to obey Rickey's directive, the 6-foot-4 inch, 220-pound hurler attempted to avoid his would-be assailant. Aware of Newk's predicament, Connors left his first base position and made a bee-line for the mound. "He can’t fight you, but I can," yelled Connors before giving the troublemaker a well-deserved drubbing. "He beat the shit out of him,” recalled Newcombe in 2007.
As it turned out, Connors' two seasons in Montreal would be his finest as a professional: he hit .307 with 36 doubles and 17 home runs in 1948, followed by 20 homers and an impressive .319/.421/.518 slash-line in 1949. (The beloved actor's big-league career never took off; he hit .238 over parts of two seasons.) Well-liked by fellow ballplayers and Hollywood castmates alike, Connors maintained a lifelong friendship with Johnny Crawford—the actor who portrayed his son, Mark McCain, on television. "He was a great guy, a lot of fun, great sense of humor, bigger than life, and he absolutely loved people," recalled Crawford. "I was a big baseball fan when we started the show. . . . I would bring my baseball and a bat and a couple of gloves . . . hoping that Chuck would join us. And he did, but after he came to bat, we would always have trouble finding the ball."
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