Hartford Capitols

Eastern Professional Basketball League (1966-1970)
Eastern Basketball Association (1970-1974)

Tombstone

Born: 1966
Folded: June 4, 1974¹

First Game: November 5, 1966 (L 113-106 @ New Haven Elms)
Last Game: May 4, 1974 (W 108-107 @ Allentown Jets)

EBA Champions: 1974

Arenas

1966-1968: Hartford Public High School

1968-1969: University of Hartford

1969-1972: Bloomfield High School

1972-1973: University of Hartford (2,200)²

1973-74: Bloomfield High School

Branding

Team Colors:

Ownership

Owners:

1966-1971: Mark Yellin, et al.
1971-1974: Burt Hoffman, et al.

Boxed Out

Remembering The Eastern Professional Basketball League

By Syl Sobel & Jay Rosenstein

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. During the early years of professional basketball, the Eastern League was the next-best professional league in the world after the NBA. It was home to big-name players such as Sherman White, Jack Molinas, and Bill Spivey, who were implicated in college gambling scandals in the 1950s and were barred from the NBA, and top Black players such as Hal “King” Lear, Julius McCoy, and Wally Choice, who could not make the NBA into the early 1960s due to unwritten team quotas on African-American players.

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Background

The Hartford Capitols were a weekends-only minor league basketball squad that toiled for eight seasons from the mid-1960’s to the mid-1970’s at a variety of high school and university gymnasiums.

The Capitols featured some terrific players, despite their ramshackle facilities. Former Duke star Art Heyman, the #1 overall pick in the 1963 NBA draft, played for Hartford during the 1966-67 season. Heyman was the MVP of the 1963 NCAA tournament. Four years later, Heyman earned the princely sum of $60 per game to suit up for the Capitols.

Two-sport prodigy Gene Conley, who won a World Series with the Milwaukee Braves and three NBA titles with the Boston Celtics, played for the Caps and also briefly coached the team during the 1969-70 season. Future Pro Basketball Hall-of-Famer K.C. Jones even played a handful of games for the Caps in the mid-’60’s.

Best For Last

The Capitols’ finest seasons were their final two. The Caps earned back-to-back trips to the Eastern Basketball Association championships series in 1973 and 1974. They lost to the Wilkes-Barre Barons in the 1973 finals.

The 1974 championship series against the Jets was a best-of-five format that came down to a winner-take-all 5th game on the road in Allentown on May 4th, 1974. Down by 13 in the 3rd quarter, the Caps mounted a comeback and forced overtime with a 100-100 tie. Allentown’s all-star guard George Bruns rattled in a jumper with 4 seconds remaining in overtime remaining to put the Jets up 107-106. Hartford’s ensuing inbounds pass led to a loose ball scramble and the Capitols superb 5′ 8″ guard Charlie Criss drew a foul with one second left on the clock. Criss proceeded to calmly drain both free throws in the face of the screaming Allentown partisans to life the Capitols to the championships.

Aftermath

The Capitols closed for business one month after winning the 1974 championship.

After tearing up the Eastern Association throughout the mid-70’s, Charlie Criss finally earned his NBA debut with the Atlanta Hawks in 1977. As a 29-year old rookie, he average 11.4 points and 3.8 assists in 77 games with Atlanta. Improbably, Criss went on to enjoy a lengthy seven-year NBA career that happened almost entirely after his 30th birthday.

Voices

“I don’t know what pressure is. I knew I was going to make them.”

– Charlie Criss, Guard 1973-74 (to Hartford Courant sportswriter Terry Price on his 1974 championship winning free throws. May 4th 1974).³