The GOAT debate is pointless to me. You’re dealing with different eras, different equipment, sometimes different games.
You take Shane or Efren and make them play Mosconi 14.1 in 1950 on those tables with those balls, cloth and cues and I don’t think they’d like the match up.
If Efren was AJ’s vintage he’d jump like a kangaroo. And probably kick a hair less well.
I think the best you can do is try to pick who is the best player of an era. I think Shane is the best of the 21st century so far.
You are right on the money. Mosconi would kill everyone in 14.1 if you sent today's players back to 1950. Slow, nappy cloth, ivory balls and high-deflection wood shafts would be the bane of all of the modern players. No doubt about it.
Could they adapt? Probably. But not necessarily enough.
Pockets are smaller nowadays because they have to be. Low-deflection shafts, no-nap fast cloth and phenolic resin balls changed the game irrevocably. Accuracy is much easier than it used to be. And so is moving around the table with fast cloth and phenolic balls.
Shaw's straight pool high run, impressive as it is (and I love Jayson!), is not all that great when you consider the equipment he used. If Mosconi could come back to life in his prime with the equipment of today, I believe he would be running thousands monthly.
This is not unique to pool. Golf has a similar history. I'll never forget reading a Golf Magazine article maybe 2 decades ago or more about Jack Nicklaus' famous 1-iron shot on the 18th hole at Baltusrol in the final round of the 1967 U.S. Open.
Before the 2005 PGA Championship at Baltusrol, Golf Magazine asked Baltusrol's reigning club champion, Rod McCrae III, a 1-handicap, to reproduce the shot. They gave him an exact replica of Nicklaus's blade 1-iron and old-style balls, with similar into-the-wind conditions.
The results make Nicklaus's shot look almost absurd:
- McCrae's first two attempts traveled only 175 and 180 yards, versus the required 238.
- Through 30 swings, he still hadn't reached the green.
- They eventually moved him 10 paces closer, and then another 10 paces closer.
- On swing 37, his ball still finished five feet short of the green.
- McCrae described the sensation of mishitting that old 1-iron as being like hitting an aluminum bat off the handle. The Golf Magazine piece's punch line was essentially that even an accomplished club champion couldn't hit the thing.
