Remembering the old Eastern Professional Basketball League
Willie Somerset is shown during his playing days with the Scranton Apollos. (Submitted photo)
Brownsville native Dewayne Cruse is shown during his playing days with the Allentown Jets. (Submitted photo)
Albert Gallatin graduate the late Buddy Quertinmont is shown during his playing days with the Scranton Miners. (Submitted photo)
A new book released in April, “Boxed Out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League,” sparked a lot of memories for me. Even though I never saw a game I was aware of the great history and stories surrounding the league.
The Eastern Basketball Association was a professional basketball league based in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The league began in 1946 and was known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League. After one season the league changed its name to the Eastern Professional Basketball League. In 1979, the league changed its name again to the Continental Basketball Association.
Some former players from Fayette County and area colleges played in the league back in the day.
In “Boxed Out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League,” Syl Sobel and Jay Rosenstein tell the fascinating story of a league that was a pro basketball institution for over 30 years, showcasing top players from around the country.
The Eastern Professional Basketball League (1946-78) was fast and physical, often played in tiny, smoke-filled gyms across the northeast and featuring the best players who just couldn’t make the NBA — many because of unofficial quotas on Black players, some because of scandals, and others because they weren’t quite good enough in the years when the NBA had less than 100 players.
One of the top local college players in the EPBL was former Farrell High School and Duquesne University star Willie Somerset.
Somerset became an all-star in the ABA after being cut by the NBA (He played in the NBA for eight games with the Baltimore Bullets in 1965-66.) and spending time with the Scranton Miners. Somerset averaged 21.7 ppg in 1967-68 and 23.8 in 1968-69 for the Houston Mavericks of the ABA. He played three seasons in the ABA, averaging 22.8 ppg.
He played with the EPBL in 1965 with the Johnstown team that folded after the season. He played with the Scranton Miners in 1966-67, averaging 27.2 ppg. He then had his fling in the ABA before returning to the EPBL. He worked as a pharmacist in Harrisburg while playing on the weekends in the EPBL.
From 1970-73, Somerset played with the Scranton Apollos of the EPBL and was a member of the league’s championship team in 1971. Somerset was named the league’s MVP and paced the league in scoring, averaging 26.3 ppg that season. In 1972-73 he averaged 23.4 ppg. He retired after that season as the league’s 28th all-time leading scorer.
“It was a weekend league, we played on the weekend,” Somerset recalled. “On Monday we got back to our regular job till Friday and we would start back again and get ready for the next game on a Saturday. It was pretty much routine, I was working in a pharmacy in a hospital. On the weekend we would have a great time playing in front of the crowds. We got paid two and three hundred dollars a game.”
One of my favorite college basketball players when I was growing up was Stan Pawlak who played at the University of Pennsylvania. Pawlak ranks fourth in all-time scoring in the Eastern League with a total of 5,783 points in 250 games (23.1 points per game). He also led the league in three-point scoring from 1968 to 1973 and again in 1975, averaging 42 three-point shots a season.
Pawlak says Somerset was an outstanding player.
“The best guard that I played against, without question,” Pawlak said. “Not counting my early days when I played against Hal Lear and others. He could do everything — could shoot, he played hard. Until Charlie Criss, he was the toughest. In our league, he was as good as it got.”
Former Albert Gallatin and West Virginia University standout the late Buddy Quertinmont also played in the Eastern Basketball Association for the Scranton Miners during the 1965-66 season.
“I played with the Scranton Miners,” Quertinmont said. “The one player that I can remember from that league that I thought was a tremendous player in the Eastern League, and I had to guard him, was Sihugo Green. He was probably eight or nine years older than I was at the time, but boy was he an athlete.
“That Eastern League was great — it was an excellent league. I made good money and to me it was huge money back then. I made $250 a ballgame and they gave us travel expenses. I was doing pretty well there for awhile.”
Another player, from Brownsville, Dewayne Cruse, who moved to Idaho and played college basketball at Idaho State, also toiled in the EBA.
Cruse played for six seasons in the rough and tumble EBA in drafty high school gyms and bandbox Armories. The average salary was about $150 a game. He played one season with the Camden Bullets and five seasons with the Allentown Jets. The league was populated with some talented players like Somerset, Paul Arizen, Walt Simon, Laverne Tart, Larry Jones, Art Heyman and Sonny Dove. Cruse was an EBA All-Star in 1969 when he averaged 17.5 ppg. and 9.3 rebounds per game.
The salaries and playing conditions made outside incomes an imperative for most of the players. Cruse taught at a technical school five days a week in the Manpower Center in Edison, N.J. He coached JV ball and jogged a couple of miles each day to keep in shape. Then on weekends he set picks, blocked shots and crashed the boards with a ferocity that belied his weekday manner.
“You had to play rough,” he said. “This was a rough league. I broke my right hand and fractured my left one year, but I played. I had no choice. In the EBA no play meant no pay.”
The Eastern Professional Basketball League ceased to exist in 1978 when it became the Continental Basketball Association.
If you are a basketball fan and are looking for a good read I heartily recommend “Boxed out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League”!
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Sunday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.