banged up said:

,,, countless hours of practice, yet my overall progress has been modest. ....

Click to expand...

Chopdoc said:

You can detect some of the same kind of changes by just removing a bumper. This would be more dramatic on a cue with a big bumper like McDermott A, B, C, and D series. Those are large and even have a rubber tenon that inserts into the butt cap. By contrast the early Meucci cues had a little "pill" bumper and less effect.

If I remember correctly rubber bumpers were originally advertised as sound dampers in old Brunswick catalogs, so the notion predates the Limbsaver by a number of decades.

I can relate to your story, an inappropriate sound or feeling can be distracting. It can drive you nuts.

You might swear it's the ferrule when it's the bumper, screw, or butt cap. Kind of like on a car or motorcycle when you swear the problem is the front end and it turns out to be the rear.

Click to expand...

dr_dave said:

I have always been interested, and I enjoy watching world-class 3C play, but I would need another lifetime to learn all the techniques and systems and give it the attention it deserves with instruction.

Click to expand...

mjantti said:

I remember refereeing junior EC 10-ball final with Jim Chawki destroying his opponent with almost a perfect match. Too bad he has not been around for years. I think a lot of talent both in Finland and Sweden but then life happens. Another junior talent from a couple of decades ago Erik Weiselius has seemed to make a comeback.

Click to expand...

LowRight said:

Here's my take. First off, there were way less players back then. The world was just starting to wake up to pool. The sheer number of players means a lot. That fact partially accounts for the fact that there is only one woman in the top 100 Fargo rankings—Siming Chen. In general, women are just not as interested in pool as men are. Secondly, the equipment was inferior. The cloth had a nap and was slow and the cues were spindly with lots of deflection. Today's modern low-deflection cues and fast, non-nap cloth allows smaller pockets. Just like golf, there is really no comparison between 35 years ago and now.

In a game like straight pool, with slow, napped cloth and needing to go into the rack multiple times per rack, Mosconi's high run is much more impressive than Jayson Shaw's. Sorry Jayson. You're one of my all-time favorite players, but that's the truth.

Here's an approximate analogy. I remember a Golf Digest article from the beginning of Tiger's career. Not to take anything away from Tiger, who I consider to be the greatest golfer of all time, but the article underscores the extreme difficulty of comparing athletes from different eras. In the 1967 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, with a final-round 3-shot lead, Nicklaus played safe off the tee with a 1-iron that plugged in the rough. He then chopped out with an 8-iron back to the fairway, leaving about 237 yards uphill into a stiff breeze. He then unleashed a famous 238-yard 1-iron, carrying the ball onto the putting surface, leaving a 22-foot birdie putt—one he rolled home to finish at 275, breaking Ben Hogan’s 72-hole U.S. Open record by one stroke. Golf Digest later recounted just how unforgiving that shot was: they brought Baltusrol’s reigning club champion, John Norton (no slouch by any means!!), out to hit Jack’s original 1-iron (and the same type of balata ball), and after 50 tries, he only managed one on-the-green. That single successful attempt underscores why Jack’s 1-iron that day is still talked about as one of the game’s all-time great approaches. Afterwards, Norton said the sweet spot on that 1-iron was the width of a dime. A dime! Today's golf clubs have a sweet spot an inch or more in width!

I submit that today's pool equipment is equivalent. Technology changes rapidly in a free market, which makes comparing different eras very difficult.

Click to expand...