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Dolin
worked as a bandmaster in 1900 and by 1910 as 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 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 was 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 at 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, 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 Rosnblums 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 their 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 Dolin's 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.
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