A real gentleman and a class player who could play some beautiful straight pool. Back when I lived in Montana, my home room was TJs and The Corner Pocket and I had a chance to play Frank in an exhibition there.
(insert flashback music)
Back in the late 70's I was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base, just outside of Great Falls, MT. One year, The Corner Pocket up there decided to bring in Frank McGowan, former 14.1 champ, for an exhibition. The manager, Joanie, asked if I'd be willing to be the sitting duck and play him 125 points of straight pool, before McGowan shot some trick shots. I said sure.
Well, I don't know what I was thinking. But I had seen Mosconi do his exhibition several times before. And I kinda suspected that McGowan would follow the usual routine for these affairs and show up in a suit, or a coat and tie. So, for reasons that are still unclear to me today, I decided that the appropriate thing for me to do in this situation was to also wear a suit. The only problem was that, at the time, I only owned one suit. It was a perfectly fine suit: a three-piece; in light gray; white shirt; skinny bright red tie.
Think Bond. James Bond.
So it's time for the exhibition. There's a room full of people around one table and McGowan comes in, and I don't know, he takes one look at me -- three-piece suit; in light gray; white shirt; bright red tie -- and he kinda goes catatonic or something. I guess it would be like going out duck hunting and the first duck you see flies by in a tux.
Well, somehow I get the first shot. Clearly, I've thrown Frank off his game.
I start to run the balls. I get into the second rack. And then the third. Frank goes to the bathroom. I get into the fourth rack. The balls are *wide open.* And then comes the shot that I still remember today: a little baby two ball combination on the rail behind the rack that, as Danny McGoorty would have said, a drunk Girl Scout could've made if you held her up to the table long enough.
And I took it for granted and I hung up the ball.
I was told afterwards, by a friend who went into the bathroom at that point, that McGowan was in there washing his hands. When my buddy told him that I had just missed, McGowan went, "He missed?!" And McGowan comes flying out and quickly proceeds to make a dish of, "Shredded Duck ala Lou," with an 80-something run and then a 50-something.
Frank was a truly great player. RIP.
Lou Figueroa