It was 1965. I was a college kid, hanging out at Paddy's 7-11 Pool Hall on Broadway, above the Metropole Cafe near 51st Street in NYC. Walter Tevis' book, "The Hustler," had been made into a movie in 1961 and pool was still very hot in NYC. It was a late Spring Friday night, I believe, in 1965 when Don Willis and Dean Chance strode into Paddy's 7-11. They were both wearing beautiful white linen suits and huge cowboy hats. I never saw anything like it. Johnny Ervolino, Staten Island, Brooklyn Jimmy, Jersey Red, Slim, New York Blackie, Deano....they were all there. The entire room turned their attention to Willis and Chance, who were fooling around on a 5x10 billiard table. After joking around and missing most of their shots, Willis worked the crowd, masterfully, into a proposition bet: he said that he could play a billiard by hitting the cue ball into the red ball, then jumping the cue ball off the table, running the cue ball across the uneven floor boards and then, completing the billiard on the floor by touching another cue ball, which was about 30 feet away, nestled next to the foot of a Brunswick Gold Crown across the room. Dean Chance was laughing and joking about how impossible such a shot really was, as if anyone was stupid enough try even try it.
Chance, who had already won the Cy Young Award in the American League in 1964, tried to shoot it and couldn't even jump the table with the cue ball. He "paid" Willis some money and then said that nobody could make that shot. Willis played the crowd some more and then drew them in for the kill. He "bet" Chance, I think it was $1000, that he could make it if he got three tries. On the first shot, he miscued, missed by a mile, and there were snickers heard all over the room. Now, Don moved in for the kill. He side bet with anybody for any amount before the second shot. A few guys in the room were holding the stakes. I don't know what the total bet was, but it was a couple of thousand, at least. Now, Don Willis chalked up, jacked up, and struck the cue ball perfectly. It hit the red ball, jumped the table, ran along the uneven and worn out floor boards of the 7-11, and slowly came to rest as it struck the other cue ball, which Willis had "casually" placed against one of the feet of the old Gold Crown. The entire room erupted. Men were almost falling down, laughing, gasping, pointing and shouting. Don collected the money and he offered to bet again because he said that it was a "lucky shot and he wanted to give everyone a chance to get their money back". There were no takers. Then Willis and Dean Chance left Paddy's. I never saw either of them again. I didn't even learn Don Willis' name until years later when I recounted this story to George Fels. George told me that Don Willis played the same con in Chicago at Bensinger's, where the cue ball ran down a flight of stairs. The gimmick, of course, is that Willis would go into the room when nobody was there several days before and figure out where the cue ball would naturally come to rest on the uneven floor. The rest was simply like taking candy from a baby. This story is true, I was there in Paddy's, although I don't know who was on the "in" and who was on the "out" of the con. Willis was a master of many cons. But he really could shoot pool.
