freddy the beard said:Quote Jay:
Freddy, you and I know that high speed pool is as much about heart and character, as it is about stroke and ball pocketing ability. Who can pull the trigger when all the cash is on the line. There is a reason these guys are legends.
Ronnie, Kelly, Red, Richie, Denny. They were poolplayers! As good as any that ever lived, Filipino, German or otherwise.
And I'll go to my grave believing that.
Jay, here is an excerpt from my upcoming book, The GosPool According To The Beard, and my take on "Who was better.":
Players of my era would destroy players of today. Bugs, Ronnie Allen, Jersey Red, Artie Bodendorfer, Boston Shorty, Eddie Taylor, Cincinnati Clem Metz, etc., were vicious killers who would shark*, cheat, psyche, and even tush-hog* their opponents in order to win. Now consider this. Players of the 30s and 40s would probably destroy the players of my era! Marcel Camp, Gene Skinner, The Eufala Kid, John "Rags" Fitzpatrick, Johnny "Irish" Lineen, New York Fats, Hubert Cokes, Alton "Baby-Face" Whitlow, Tommy the Greek, James Evans, Isadore"Pony" Rosen, et al., played even harder than the Ronnie Allen-era boys. The economic conditions necessary to develop players of that determination and ferocity are no longer present. Depression-era players were hungry wolves, whose level of concentration was nail-bending. Economics of the 50s, 60s and early 70s, while they didn't rival the Depression years, were nonetheless hard times.
the Beard
You'll go to your grave wrong. Living in the past can be fun, but it ain't real accurate. Efren would make Ronnie Allen look like a baby at one pocket. The simple truth is that the standard for all sports that people play has done nothinig but go up over time. This is true for every sport in the world, from golf and tennis to track and swimming. Records get broken every day. 30 years from now some of us will be sitting around telling the youngsters that no one in their era could have beaten Efren. We will probably be wrong too.
As new players come in they learn the skills of those that came before them and they build upon that. They rise to the top and before long another comes along who is just slightly better. The progression is endless. In 20 years who knows how good guys will play. Remember when Efren first came on the scene? All those kick safeties and things he shot at were unheard of. Now they're standard shots and all the guys play them. Archer and Strickland used to have the biggest breaks around. Now they just keep up. They haven't gotten worse - everyone else has gotten better.
Golf: Jones, Hagen, Nelson, Palmer, Nicklaus - Woods would beat them all
Tennis: Laver, Borg, Lendl, Edberg, Sampras - Federrer would beat them all
Snooker: Davis, Spencer, Reardon, Davis, Hendry - O'Sullivan would beat them all
Pool: Hoppe, Camp, Mosconi, Lassiter, Kelly, Sigel, Archer, Efren - someone is coming who will beat them all, I promise. Somewhere there's a kid watching every move Efren makes who will one day suprass him. It's called evolution, and it's happening before our eyes.
Now of course your era may well have the monopoly on guys who played short, cheated, robbed, hustled and otherwise acted like douches, but I kinda doubt that too. However, if that's a crown you really want I won't debate it.
But with all that said, I hope you don't go to your grave for a long, long time yet. The discussions are fun to have.