Would players of today wipe the floor against past players....

dom_poppa said:

Guys like SVB or Efren, would these guys punish the players of the past such as Fats, Greenleaf and Mosconi?

I think they would clean their clocks. Might have to buy them a cab ride home though.

I've watched old videos of pool and some of them in today's standards would be your typical league player.

This is nothing impressive...compared to today's standards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRKw56oAA-E

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While I kind of agree I think you posted a bad example. Mosconi is the greatest straight pool player of all time bar none. Now if we are talking about most other players from that time period and we are talking about 8ball or 9ball I agree that today's players are better.

Batman could give Spider-Man the 7. Discuss.

Well one dead horse is as good as another I suppose.

DeOro would give Shane a bath.
Yup, I said it.

Let the pages of nonsense begin!

man I'm sure they had the accuracy but they didn't have to. I watch them play with big pockets and slow dead cloth and think how much easier the game would be not worrying about skid or balls rattling as easy BUT I can tell you I believe the current players would have to adjust also if they had to play on the old equipment. I know I struggle a bit on a bar box when I go from fast cloth that is on 90 percent of the tables where I can finesse the ball around the table with a little to spin to a slow malli cloth where now I have to muscle it around with a bigger stroke. I can only imagine trying to do that on a 9 or 10 foot table and how much harder you would have to hit the ball to go multiple rails for position

This ls honestly like trying to argue who's better Tiger woods or bobby jones. Bobby may not be able to hit it as but the equipment he used made the game a ton harder.. It's just an impossible argument.

I'd rather see that this then 10 more pages vote for the biggest troll thread... This is a discussion forum about pool right?

Mr. Bond said:

Well one dead horse is as good as another I suppose.

DeOro would give Shane a bath.
Yup, I said it.

Let the pages of nonsense begin!

Click to expand...

dom_poppa said:

Guys like SVB or Efren, would these guys punish the players of the past such as Fats, Greenleaf and Mosconi?

I think they would clean their clocks. Might have to buy them a cab ride home though.

I've watched old videos of pool and some of them in today's standards would be your typical league player.

This is nothing impressive...compared to today's standards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRKw56oAA-E

Click to expand...

You watched old videos of Mosconi and Greenleaf in their prime playing with today's equipment? Could you tell me where I can find these videos?

Do you realize Efren will be 60 years old next month? In a debate of whether the youngsters would demolish the old guys Efren is proof that is an incorrect assumption.

There is a video of Efren playing a young guy named Bobby for cash. Efren toyed with the kid to keep the money flowing. First $500, then $2,000, then $6,000.

In 14.1 Mosconi and Greenleaf would be prohibitive favorites on any equipment. One pocket, Efren would be a huge favorite. Rotation, who knows.

dom_poppa said:

Guys like SVB or Efren, would these guys punish the players of the past such as Fats, Greenleaf and Mosconi?

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Playing the game of the elders, No friggen way!

I think they would clean their clocks. Might have to buy them a cab ride home though.

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9-ball, maybe. 14.1 never.

I take Mosconi in straight pool, or for that matter Lassiter, Balsis, or Crain against any player today.

Don Poppa if you think any of these players in their prime were no better than "league players" I would like to know what you are smoking.

Your video example of Willie is 30 years and at least one stroke after he retired.

dom_poppa said:

Guys like SVB or Efren, would these guys punish the players of the past such as Fats, Greenleaf and Mosconi?

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Some questions would better not be asked as there is zero way of find an answer IMHO, so why stress over something you will never know an answer to 110% for sure?

Different time, different people, different everything.:banghead:

Old vs. New

We basically remember/see willie Mosconi as an older player past his prime.
Not much tape during his prime readily available. Also we think of him as solely as a
14.1 master. But did you know he fed his family as a teenager playing 9 ball around the
Philly and south jersey area -- in one match this was the spot ---
Opponent only had to hit the 1 ball and willie looses.
Do i need to say more.
Willies game is a great read and offers a real insight as to how great he was and how
Great the players were back then. Oh by the way he did this with house cues off the rack
Until his first attempt at a world championship.
MCP

Mosconi and Players from the Golden Era

From what I have read about straight pool , in the 1920s and 30s the golden Era od Pool , many players were capable of 150-200 ball runs and these were your common room players , not even close to the level of Greenleaf , and Mosconi

As far as Fats goes , he was a great showman but not that great a player , he was easily 2 levels below Mosconi in skill.

Jackie Gleason , in 1961 when he filmed the Hustler , was a world ranked Straight pool player and in my opinion a much better player , than Rudolph Wanderone who took up the moniker of Minnisota Fats

In straight pool I don't think there is a modern player who could have beaten Mosconi in his Prime

dom_poppa said:

Thread Title: "Would players of today wipe the floor against past players.... - Today, 04:56 PM"

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First, let's address the title of this thread. You don't wipe the floor "against" past players. You wipe the floor with past players.

It's in the same way you don't sweep the floor against a broom. You sweep the floor with a broom.

dom_poppa said:

Guys like SVB or Efren, would these guys punish the players of the past such as Fats, Greenleaf and Mosconi?

I think they would clean their clocks. Might have to buy them a cab ride home though.

I've watched old videos of pool and some of them in today's standards would be your typical league player.

This is nothing impressive...compared to today's standards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRKw56oAA-E

Click to expand...

A couple of points:

1. Willie was well past his prime in that video.

2. As supporting evidence of point #1, watch how Willie describes the first breakshot. You'll see that the first camera view is from the bottom of the table, then after Willie strokes the breakshot and the rack starts to scatter, they switch to an overhead view. Before they switch to that overhead view, watch *very* carefully the balls at the bottom of the table -- none of them threaten the bottom-left corner pocket, nor are even in the vicinity of that bottom-left corner pocket. ("Bottom-left" as you, the viewer, sees the table.)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qRKw56oAA-E#t=45s

Then, after they switch to the overhead view (1:07 in the video), Willie says, "Now that's better." Check this out:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qRKw56oAA-E#t=1m7s

"Better" than what? If you look at the layout of the balls now -- after they switched to an overhead camera view -- you'll see that there's a ball jawed in the bottom-left corner pocket. How'd that happen, when there were no balls even coming close or on a trajectory to that pocket in the first camera view?

The answer is editing, of course. That first shot was edited, so that Willie could execute it again. Willie exclaimed "Now that's better!" because he didn't like the layout he got the first time -- perhaps had no subsequent shot afterwards. Try it -- compare the layout and trajectory of the balls in the behind-the-table camera view (at approximately 1:00), to the overhead camera view (at approximately 1:08), and you'll see that they are two different shots.

This is evidence that Willie was several ticks off of his prime.

I wouldn't use Willie's playing in this video as any kind of comparison to today's players. It isn't fair to do so.

P.S.: many thanks to AZB's own "Dan White" for discovering and pointing out this editing job in this Mosconi video in the 14.1 forum some weeks back. Thanks Dan!

-Sean

Bustamante, in a TAR podcast said that there were Filipino monster players when he was growing up that are better than he is today - despite the advances in cue or table technology.



Sent from my X501_USA_Cricket using Tapatalk 2

Comparing giants of different eras can only be hypothetical.

I'm not a fan of Willie's personality,but I am of his game....
....if Willie was 25 years old today, raised on modern equipment and with the head start
of pool knowledge that he and his contemporaries DISCOVERED.....

Who the hell would beat him?

dom_poppa said:

Guys like SVB or Efren, would these guys punish the players of the past such as Fats, Greenleaf and Mosconi?

I think they would clean their clocks. Might have to buy them a cab ride home though.

I've watched old videos of pool and some of them in today's standards would be your typical league player.

This is nothing impressive...compared to today's standards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRKw56oAA-E

Click to expand...

These debates are usually pointless, not just in pool but in other sports. Was Reyes better than Mosconi, Schumacher better than Fangio, Woods better than Hogan, Nadal better than Laver, etc....Players can only truly be compared to those they competed against in their primes.

Certainly some kid 50 years from now will watch Reyes and think he wasn't very good compared to players in 2065. He'll say "he couldn't jump, didn't break very hard, his pocketing was sloppy on big pockets." I think we all know how good he truly is, but will be way too old to argue with any sort of memory

dom_poppa said:

Guys like SVB or Efren, would these guys punish the players of the past such as Fats, Greenleaf and Mosconi?

I think they would clean their clocks. Might have to buy them a cab ride home though.

I've watched old videos of pool and some of them in today's standards would be your typical league player.

This is nothing impressive...compared to today's standards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRKw56oAA-E

Click to expand...

The pockets are so big on that table I cannot even see the rails.

axejunkie said:

These debates are usually pointless, not just in pool but in other sports. Was Reyes better than Mosconi, Schumacher better than Fangio, Woods better than Hogan, Nadal better than Laver, etc....Players can only truly be compared to those they competed against in their primes.

Certainly some kid 50 years from now will watch Reyes and think he wasn't very good compared to players in 2065. He'll say "he couldn't jump, didn't break very hard, his pocketing was sloppy on big pockets." I think we all know how good he truly is, but will be way too old to argue with any sort of memory

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true, but it's at least a little more relevant in pool where we're not comparing the modern day fitness regimented freaks against the old blue collar 9-5er's who played say pro football part time

From everything I've read here regarding the old timers from those who lived the era, they were better overall

Willie was a pocketing machine.

Not to hijack, You can see where Willie shortens his grip and strikes forward of vertical on certain shots. Many players today do the same thing. I think it is important to do but I don't see many teaching it.