Billiards Digest**** Hal Houle / Ralph Greenleaf

Ralph Greenleaf

SpiderWebComm said:
Check out this new article in Billiards Digest about Ralph Greenleaf - as told by Hal Houle.

http://www.billiardsdigest.com/new_current_issue/apr_09/index_untold.php

Fascinating..... and a good article.

Enjoy
Dave
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Dave that article was a great read!
I didn't know that the "Great Greenleaf" turned into a drunken, druged out ho-bo , thats a shame, for only being 50yrs. at his death, maybe he could of had many more years to have been Champion!



David Harcrow
 
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catpool9 said:
Dave that article was a great read!
I didn't know that the "Great Greenleaf" turned into a drunken, druged out ho-bo , thats a shame, for only being 50yrs. at his death, maybe he could of had many more years to have been Champion!



David Harcrow
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Actually, Greenleaf was known to be a drunk as early as his early 20's.
 
Greenleaf could perform amazing, magical feats. For instance, who else but Ralph Greenleaf could consistently hit combination wing shots? He said Greenleaf would slow roll two object balls down the table, and then shoot the combinations on the fly. Houle was so flabbergasted that he accused the former champion of using some sort of trick — of having some special technique for rolling the balls.

“You roll them yourself then,” said Greenleaf.

Houle would then slow roll the two object balls, and Greenleaf could still hit the combinations.
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Wow.

pj
chgo
 
It would be nice if he would even record the info

eezbank said:
Hal has a ton of great stories. It would be nice if Hal was in good enough health to write a book. Thanks for the link Dave!
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If he could be talked into recording some of his stories one of many people could co-author with him letting them do the grunt work. It's been about a year now but I talked to Hal on the phone for hours and he seemed sharp as a tack especially when remembering old stories.

Let's see, Hal to talk, JAM to type, JoeyA to edit, all I need is to figure out a title for me so I can mooch a cut!

Hu
 
catpool9 said:
Dave that article was a great read!
I didn't know that the "Great Greenleaf" turned into a drunken, druged out ho-bo , thats a shame, for only being 50yrs. at his death, maybe he could of had many more years to have been Champion!



David Harcrow
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I believe he was in an unmarked grave until recently. Does anyone remember that or am I think of someone else?
 
Hal once told me that he would take Ralph around... city to city, state to state... just randomly going into pool halls trying to strike up some random action.

According to Hal, Ralph looked so rough that no one recognized him. As a matter of fact, he was always visibly high on something... so most guys would literally trip over each other trying to talk Ralph into a game.

Mind you, this was LONG before pool magazines or azbilliards.com, etc. Almost everyone KNEW about Ralph Greenleaf or possibly saw him dolled-up on a poster... but no one could recognize the "every day" Ralph - the tattered looking drunk who would stumble through the door, literally.

Once again.... according to Hal, Ralph could play SO well drunk (not pretending to be drunk... but being shit-faced for real) it would make your head spin. At one point of their cross country trip, Hal counted nearly a week since Ralph's last miss.

So, whenever they found action (which was often, believe it or not), Ralph controlled the game 100%. Playing 14.1, he could control how many balls the opponent scored regardless of their speed -- meaning, he could win at any time of his choosing. Never once did many of these SUCKER mo-fos (imo) realize they were playing a 12x world champion.

One guy asked Ralph (without knowing it was Ralph), "How on earth do you make balls with your head tilted to the side - your head is nearly resting on your shoulder!"

Ralph replied, "I dunno - they go in the hole, don't they?"

I always liked that story.
 
macguy said:
I believe he was in an unmarked grave until recently. Does anyone remember that or am I think of someone else?
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It's true - he was buried in an unmarked grave in Monmouth Illinois, his home town. A few years ago there was an article in Billiard Digest, I believe, where the author was trying to raise funds to buy a headstone. He was successful and a nice headstone is now on his grave. I believe one big donor popped for most of it. He is buried alongside his wife. You can see his grave here:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=greenleaf&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=in&GSst=16&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=17648983&
 
There's a lot of good info on Ralph in the Mosconi autobiography (Willie's Game) and in Bob Byrne's McGoorty.

Willie traveled a lot with Ralph giving exhibitions and learned a lot from him (just by watching and analyzing his game). He had a hard time keeping track of him because, with his drinking, Ralph was kind of a wild character and prone not to show up where and when he was supposed to. McGoorty knew Ralph well and idolized him. Both men attest to the fact that he could play very well while drinking, at least up to a point. But he passed that point numerous times and exhibitions had to be called off because of it.
 
Last I talked to Hal, he told me that Greenleaf ran 150 and out many, many, many times, I can't remember now how many. Dave?
 
HeadStone.

Rich93 said:
It's true - he was buried in an unmarked grave in Monmouth Illinois, his home town. A few years ago there was an article in Billiard Digest, I believe, where the author was trying to raise funds to buy a headstone. He was successful and a nice headstone is now on his grave. I believe one big donor popped for most of it. He is buried alongside his wife. You can see his grave here:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=greenleaf&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=in&GSst=16&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=17648983&
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Yes that is certainly a most deserving headstone for Ralph Greenleaf.
Whether dead or alive, I'm glad that there are still some decent folk in this World that will help someone out!


David Harcrow
 
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