You don't Lou. And that has been one of the points I was making by placing the word "proof" in quotes. You ask "How do you prove one way or the other...I ask; How does Billy prove his innocence to this man's charges. I did not know Billy in his early days but I know him now and I trust my sense of the man. I also know many who have known him for decades, and I trust their judgement far greater then that of someone who is willing to publicly throw dirt at someone with allegations decades old. Talk about unfair! That's why OF should not have opened this can of filth.
Words tend to get around. And OF's words are now out in public where a true gentleman of our sport, an ambassador as well, is now being maligned. Unfair and I hope OF retracts his statement.
Tom
Aren't you an East Coast guy, Tom? So perhaps you don't know either.
The fact of the matter is that the standard for "proof" in the pool world is not as it is in the legal world. Guys talk, stuff happens all over the country, in small and large pool rooms, before small number of witnesses. And whereas you can say "no way" all you want, that does not discount what other guys may have observed on other sides of the country.
When people talk about, say, Jack Cooney as the master of laying down the long con, how do you "prove" or disprove that? It is word of mouth and I don't think anyone nowadays argues that San Francisco Jack wasn't the master of the long stall. Prove it? Impossible. Other than stories.
So all I'm saying is that if someone comes here with credible testimony, he should be heard out. So far OF seems credible to me, and I would hope that, without naming names that he feels would be problematic, he'll provide some level of detail to bolster his claims IF he wants to be taken seriously. If he doesn't, well then, then I guess we can throw it all in the rumor file. In any case, let's hear him out if he chooses to provide something to back up his initial accusations. But there is no way that you can automatically say there is zero credibility to what he says.
Lou Figueroa