clem metz

billycarrelli

Registered
for those of you who don't know who clem was .he was the best one-pocket player in the world excluding eddie taylor in the 1960's he grew up in chicago but moved to cincinnati as a teenager .he played pool simply for money .he didn't respect players who would not bet their own money.i talked to him at length about two years ago . he died about a year ago. i ran into him at krogers in northern ky, igave him a ride home and parked in front of his apartment , we talked pool for an hour which was rare because clem didn't talk much to anybody bout pool . he didn't think anybody could play except eddie taylor but he did admit efren was very good.he talked about taylor with great respect .like he was babe ruth of pool .he opened up and admitted he couldn't beat taylor untill he got drunk and still it was very tough he said he figured out how to play him , by putting a ball or two by the side pocket to block eddie's banking lanes . i asked him why? raising his voice he said because he would make any long rail bank and draw the cue ball back down the table and run out.he told me with pride about playing squirell race to three for five thousand .and they both bet their own money, clem won three to two .he said squirell got mad at himself and broke the rack. i asked him was squirell a dog /just get a rise from him he said hell no sqirell was a very good player who did not dog it. he never played in tournaments ,he would go to the winners home-townand set a trap for the champion after beating all shortstops, he would then bust the champion and the sideline .he was cold as ice and saw pool simply as a way to make money.he said he learned how to play one-pocket by watching lingo .who spent time in cinti. not playing him but observing his every move lingo was excellent at kicking balls away from your side to his pocket. these shots were billiard shots . he diagramed his favorite shot which was kicking behind a ball on your side over in front of his pocket and floating down in front of your hole.clem was an excellent 3cushion pklayer . this shotwas coined by billy incardona as the clem shot. he didn't talk to most people about pool or anything else but i had known him for fourty years and he respected my knowledge.clem told me how he beat every good player fom that era jersey red and said he spotted ayoung ronnie allen. he played joey spaeth 8 to 7and kept him broke.he was also very good at all games,he said he beat donnie anderson playing bank and that was a tall order.next time i will talk about how we met and played one handed one-pocket this was 1966.i never saw or heard him laugh he had no sense of humor.clem moved around the table with short graceful steps no nonsense he was like a robot and when adresing the ball he would cock his head ever so slightly and when he took his final stroke he would get a smirk on his face as to say you will do what i tell you to do . he was truly an ice man who didn't care how long the game took .you were never going to get a shot more to come about a real legend ,every were i went in the country people would ask if i knew him and talked about him as the best they ever saw more to come later billyc
 

Maniac

2manyQ's
Silver Member
Billy,
Love the old stories. Thanks for this one!

Wanna hear something very strange/eerie? My last name is Metz, as is my fathers last name. He is the very first person that I ever shot pool with. He was born/raised in western Pennsylvania, left for the Marine Corps in 1942, and after the war settled here in Texas. In his youth, he had an uncle that was an avid (and supposedly good) poolplayer that my dad talked of frequently. Carl Hohl was his name. I'm rambling a bit now, but here is the eerie part. My grandfather on my mothers side, a native Texan all his life, used to call my dad Clem. It wasn't part of his name nor his nickname (Buzz was his nickname). There was nobody in the family named Clem. We never really knew why he called my father Clem. Not even my mother could answer that one. Weird, huh?

Anyways, thanks once again for the cool story!!!

Maniac
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
Thanks Billy for the story about a legendary One Pocket player. You probably don't remember me, I was just a kid from Dayton hanging around Mergards in the 60's (maybe 1965). I would see Clem there every night along with Joey Spade and the mailman. Gary was a baby then :wink:.

I never saw anyone gamble with Clem, only once in a while he would shoot some proposition shots. He beat me out of a couple of bucks a few times :grin:.
He claimed to be out of stroke since his stint in the can and I was told he didn't play as good after that. Maybe you know better.

Mergards was a cool room but I had to be careful since I was still in my learning stages. Got a pretty good education there in the time I was working at the Fifth-Third Bank. Thanks
 

Cuebuddy

Mini cues
Silver Member
billyc your story of Clem is one of the reasons I hang here, thanks and can't wait to read chapter two.

Maniac all I can say is WOW!:cool:

Jay...... you really got around!
I can't wait for the next book.
 
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