Eddie Dolin

EDDIE DOLIN was a well-known figure in Camden both for his exploits on the basketball court and in the general community. For many years he was the tender of the Federal Street drawbridge.

Edwin Thomas Dolin was born on August 1, 1892 in Staunton, Virginia to Edwin B. and Birdie Dolin. By 1900 the family was living in West Homestead, PA. The elder Dolin worked as a bandmaster in 1900 and by 1910 as a traveling salesman for a cash register company. When the 1910 census was enumerated young Edwin, sister Loris and brother Ford were still living at home, as was his paternal grandmother Anna, aunt Mabel Dolan, and maternal uncle Herbert Coust.

Eddie Dolin broke into professional basketball in 1911 with the Charleroi team in the western Pennsylvania-based Central Basketball League. This was the league’s sixth and final campaign, as it disbanded after playing a few exhibition games in 1912. Charleroi featured two of the CBL’s best players, Jackie Adams and Jimmy Brown. When the CBL broke up, all three and as well as another Charleroi standout, Bill Herron, came to Camden for the 1912–1913 campaign. They may have been recruited in part by Camden-born basketball veteran Eddie Ferat, a member of the old Eastern League Camden Electrics, who had been playing in the CBL. Roy Steele, another CBL star, played briefly for the Camden in 1912–1913, and would return a few seasons later.

In the better-financed Eastern Basketball League, Eddie Dolin played with one of the best teams in the East, Camden of New Jersey. The Camden team was known as the Camden Alphas from 1912 to 1917, the Camden Crusaders from 1919 to 1921, and as the Camden Skeeters from 1921 until the league’s collapse in 1923. Eddie Dolin played in Camden for nine seasons, from 1912 through the end of the 1917 season, and again after World War I. During his prime years, two of which were lost to the war-caused suspension of play, he was in the top ten in scoring in the EBL six times.

Although he played basketball in Camden, Eddie Dolin did not make his residence here permanently until after World War I. When he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917, Eddie Dolin and his wife were living at 227 Ninth Street in West Homestead, PA, near Pittsburgh. He was then working as an inspector for the Pennsylvania Railroad at Pitcairn. He was not called to active duty during the War.

Eddie Dolin did not play professional basketball in 1917–1918, and no pro ball was played in 1918–1919. The 1920 Census, taken in January of that year, shows him and his wife Marion and their daughter Marion living with a relative, William Haley, at 44 Potter Street in Haddonfield, NJ. Eddie Dolin was working as a steel inspector at a steel mill. By this time he had returned to basketball. He played one game for the Plymouth Shawnees in the Pennsylvania State League before returning to Camden.

The 1919–1920 season for Eddie Dolin was a great success. He played 37 games for the Camden Crusaders and was third in the league in scoring. The 1919–1920 Camden Crusaders were champions of the Eastern Basketball League, which was and is acknowledged by many to be the leading professional basketball league of its time. His teammates included star players like Jimmy “Soup” Campbell, Neil Deighan, Roy Steele, and Dave Kerr, and young local talents Joe Hyde, Sam Lennox, and Richie Deighan. The team was owned by local businessmen Dr. Charles B. Helm and W. Penn Corson, who had also been Sheriff of Camden County. Eddie Dolin continued to play basketball in Camden until the Eastern league collapsed on January 18, 1923. He held the single-season record for most games played, 47, during the 1921–1922 EBL campaign.

When the EBL folded Eddie Dolin signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the Metropolitan Basketball League, where he finished out the 1922–1923 season. The following year he played for the Trenton Royal Bengals in the same circuit. Eddie Dolin did not play professional basketball again until 1928, when he appeared in one game with the Cleveland Rosenblums in the American Basketball League. This team had a strong Camden connection, as four other Camden players appeared for the Rosenblums that season: Rich Deighan, Soup Campbell, Dave Kerr, and Joe Sheehan.

Time and injuries had taken their toll. Eddie Dolin played some semi-pro ball in the South Jersey League, but his days as a star player were long gone. Although not active politically, his wife Marion served as a Republican county committeewoman, and Eddie Dolin held several jobs in municipal and county government over the rest of his working life. He had bought a home in Oaklyn, NJ around 1923 and lived there as late as the winter of 1938, before moving to Haddonfield.

The 1930 Census shows the Eddie and Marion Dolin living with their two daughters, Marion and Dorothy, in Oaklyn, NJ in a home they owned at 401 Newton Avenue. He was then working as a shipper for an engineering company. Eddie Dolin later worked for the borough of Oaklyn’s Board of Health. By the spring of 1942 the Dolins had moved to 25 Chestnut Street in Haddonfield, NJ. He was then working for Camden County in the “Bridges and Roads Department.” The Dolins lived at the Chestnut Street address as late as the fall of 1959 before moving to Cherry Hill.

Last a resident of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Eddie Dolin passed away in July of 1970. Marion Dolin had preceded him in death in April of 1965.

He has been connected with the cage game for a score of years, never bullyrags his men and can get results where others fail. Working hand and glove with Steele, who is captain and the king pin of the men on the floor, Kennedy has succeeded in giving Camden what others have failed to do, namely, the much coveted pennant. If the Skeeters can crown their achievement with the second half crown the natives from the city of ships, phonographs, soaps, furniture and fair zone activities can well afford to look our way and give us a silent sneer.

And they did.

The Skeeters went right on to win 16 more games and the second half, which also included the “much coveted pennant.” They tied a league record of the Reading Bears with 30 wins per season, even though they had one more loss — 10.

‘Reading Bear Pit’

Ryan had said of the Skeeters: “The desire to do the right thing at the right moment, a willingness for team play and a general pull together spirit made a combination which the other five teams found too formidable to surmount.”

The first half saw the Skeeters in a tight race with Trenton. That half merited Camden second place with over 20 victories. In the final half race Kennedy’s courtmen again became the bridesmaid, despite a 15–5 record.

Campbell was back in the harness again and with Kerr, Dolin, Steele and Neil Deighan they had a pretty powerful club.

Eight teams, including the New York Celtics, battled in the first half, while the roster dwindled to six quintets in the final race.

But the league registered eight teams when it opened its 1922–23 season. It was believed by many to be the best setup for the Eastern League in its history. The other major circuits in the area had folded and the Eastern was supposed to be set solidly.

League Folds

It started an early season (October) and that was the beginning of the end. Football was in full swing. Baseball had just ended. Fans like their sports in season.

The league began to crumble when Scranton and then Wilkes-Barre dropped out. Atlantic City and Reading were next to toss in the towel. A meeting at Musical Fund Hall saved the league for a short time when Trenton, Camden, Coatesville and Philadelphia vowed to make a go of it.

However, in mid-January of 1923 the Eastern League succumbed as the four remaining teams went broke. The main reason for the crackup was put to the “inflated salaries” of the players. But the Skeeters’ backers decried that explanation when they said “every Camden player was worth every cent.” They had kept Camden in first place until the league folded.

Fans Were Confused

Following one of the last games played in the league in Camden, Ryan wrote, “Wednesday night’s crowd would have been a disgrace to the East Side Church League.” That about summed it up.

Constant rearrangement of the league had jumbled the schedule. Fans never knew when or where their teams were playing. The gates were pitiful and the teams couldn’t operate without the money.

That was the end of the championship era of players like Steele, the Deighans, Campbell, Kerr, Dolin and the others. Some of them competed in the Philadelphia League the following season, but Camden dropped out of that league in 1924–25.

Old-timers who can recall the days of the championship Skeeters claim it was the “greatest basketball” team the East ever had.

Players Still Around

And some of the boys who played on that club are still around to verify that. Neil Deighan runs a restaurant in Gloucester and brother Rich manages the Sports Center here in Camden.

Eddie Dolin is a familiar figure as the bridge operator at 12th and Federal sts. Sam Lennox tends bar on Hudson st. and Davey Kerr deals in sporting goods in Ohio.

The rest — Steele, Campbell, Hyde, timekeeper Jim Kane, Helm, Corson and Kennedy — have passed away. But the memories of their court capabilities are very much alive.