He played two seasons in Major League Baseball, as a pitcher for the 1882 Baltimore Orioles, and as a second baseman for the 1884 Detroit Wolverines.

[3] Geiss made his debut in Major League Baseball with the Baltimore Orioles on July 19, 1882, at age 24.

[1] After spending the 1883 season with the Fort Wayne Hoosiers in the Northwestern League,[4] Geiss joined the Detroit Wolverines in 1884.

In his one game as pitcher, he threw five relief innings and allowed 14 hits, two bases on balls, and 16 runs, eight of them earned, for an ERA of 14.40.

Geiss's minor league career saw him play for at least 17 different teams in 10 years, including stints with Birmingham, Alabama (1885), Omaha, Nebraska (1885), Macon, Georgia (1886), the New Orleans Pelicans (1887), Charleston, South Carolina (1888), Sioux City, Iowa (1888), Kalamazoo and Flint, Michigan (1889), Ottawa, Illinois (1890–91), Joliet, Illinois (1891), Montgomery, Alabama (1892), Chattanooga, Tennessee (1892), Nashville, Tennessee (1893), Atlanta (1894), and Savannah Modocs (1894).