Introduction
Alfred Cooper “Al” Geddes played professional basketball in the old National Basketball League, the world’s first professional basketball loop. While currently compiled records show him playing for three different Pennsylvania teams between 1898 and 1902, a newspaper article from February of 1928 quotes Camden Electrics coach William “Billy” Morgenweck, who stated that Geddes also played for the Camden team. It is known that he played alongside two all-time great players who later played in Camden, Charles Bossert and John “Snake” Deal. His younger brother, Frank Geddes, also played for the three Pennsylvania teams—Chester, the Philadelphia BC, and the Philadelphia Clover Wheelmen—that Al Geddes appeared with.
Al Geddes was born in Philadelphia on June 5 of 1875 to Alonzo P. and Hannah Mary Clark Geddes. He was living at 4675 Main Street in Philadelphia at the time of the 1900 census, with wife Mary and sons Charles, Alonzo, and Joseph. He was then working as a driver. As Billy Morgenweck stated, Al Geddes did return to Philadelphia after his basketball days ended. He had become a Philadelphia policeman when the census was being taken in 1910. The family, which by then included son Frank and daughter Mary, was living at 77 Reger Street. By January of 1920 he was living at 79 Ashmead Street in Philadelphia, where he was still working as a policeman.
Al Geddes was fatally injured in an automobile accident on February 9, 1928.
‘Al’ Geddes Injured, Trolley Hits Auto
Camden Courier-Post —
Former Camden Electric Court Star Dying, Three Companions Killed
Alfred (“Al”) Geddes, once a well-known member of “Billy” Morgenweck’s old Camden Electrics basketball team, is at the point of death in a Philadelphia hospital today and the bodies of three other men, one of them a member of the coast guard from Toms River, are in morgues as a result of a collision late yesterday between a one-man trolley and an automobile.
The accident occurred in front of the Cedarbrook Country Club, on Limekiln pike, Cheltenham township, where the trolley line crosses from one side of the pike to the other.
The dead as [sic] Lewis Schwartz, 28 years old, of Toms River, Michael Gallagher, 52 years old, 5110 Lena street, Germantown, and Charles J. Watson, 50 years old, 24 East Collom street, Germantown. Schwartz was driving a sedan in which the other three were passengers. The trolley, bound for Willow Grove, crashed into the automobile, which was traveling in the opposite direction. The men were taken unconscious from beneath the wreckage of their car. The three died in Jewish Hospital, where Geddes was also taken.
Schwartz, who was stationed at the Seaside Coast Guard base, is survived by a wife, also of Toms River, and five brothers.
Geddes, who is 52 years old, lived at 4928 Germantown avenue, Philadelphia. Morgenweck, informed of the accident, told of his association with the former basketball player.
“He lived in Camden years ago,” he said, “and joined the Electrics when we left the Camden Y. M. C. A. and went to the Sixth Regiment Armory, West and Mickie streets. In my opinion he was physically the best pivot man who ever stepped on a basketball floor. After he left Camden he joined the Germantown Police force. Several years ago he resigned, and I had not heard of him since then until today.”