Mosconi 526

[JoeyInCali]

Sorry, but I think this might have been the most overrated record in pool.
Huge pockets and pro-8 table?

John Schmidt's 400+ might have been a better record.

 

[Mr Hoppe]

Snip . . . Babe Cranfield is supposed to have run 768 (I think it was) in practice, and those that knew him don't doubt it either. I read that it was over two days - he went to bed with an unfinished run and picked up the next day where he left off.

Great players, but Mosconi usually (or maybe always) beat them in tournaments.

Ahhhhh, this is what I was thinking of. Sorry, I thought it was WM.

 

[jay helfert]

Sorry, but I think this might have been the most overrated record in pool.
Huge pockets and pro-8 table?

John Schmidt's 400+ might have been a better record.

If it's so over rated, how come no one can do it today - on any table! By the way, they were not huge pockets. The standard pocket opening on the old A.E. Schmidt tables was less than 5", maybe four and five-eighths. They weren't such soft tables. If you didn't hit the pocket the ball wasn't going in! I played on similar tables in Dayton growing up. I think the new cloth helped Willie more than anything else.

Remember, it isn't that easy to play position on a tighter (smaller) table. There are more clusters and less room to operate. Lassiter used to like to practice on an 8' table for just that reason.

 

[jay helfert]

Willie missed the 6 ball. It was not a break shot.
Howard Barrett told me a long story about the run when he was in Talahassee, FL. Turns out, Howard wasn't there. Neither was George Rood.
But some of the names on the affidavit are probably still around. Someone should look them up.
I talked to one of them, A.Y. Thomas, some time ago. He described the missed shot. There may be more on some of the old forum archives. He also said the pockets were not particularly easy, as some people keep reporting, but the cloth was new. And the run took considerably longer than the 2-1/2 hours Mosconi claimed.

BTW, is Howard still around? Heard he moved to Georgia. He was in poor health---carried an oxygen tank.

We need an investigative reporter from the Dayton area.


Ed

You're probably right about that, a cut shot on the six in the corner. He over cut it. I think we lost Howard about five years ago. I last saw him in Tallahassee at Larry Knox's poolroom in 1997. He knew (and played with) many of the people who were there that day, when Willie put on his exhibition. That's where he got his info. George Rood and Russ Maddox the same. They knew many of these guys who witnessed it.

 

[California Kid]

Mosconi's Run

Thanks Jay. I have been saying for years that an 8' table is harder than a 9' table for 14.1 pool. Balls go to the rail and then back to the stack and there is no shot. If anyone out there thinks Mosconi's run is not hard just throw 15 balls out on the table and shoot them all in 30-40 times in a row. Part of Mosconi's Brunswick show was a 100 ball run or the money back. Anyone around today who would try that?? Not....

 

[JoeyInCali]

If it's so over rated, how come no one can do it today - on any table! .

Because they only race to 150 balls now?
And that straight pool as the game of choice died a long time ago.

If they still played straight pool heavily today, I think Thorsten and John S would have broken that record.

 

[atthecat]

Does anyone know something about Earl's high run of 408? Was that a practice session? What kind of table?
No one really talks about it. 408 is STRONG for a 9 ball player! Or is he a 9 ball player???? :smile:

 

[LAlouie]

This post is in no way a disrespectful shot at Mr. Mosconi, he is a true legend, but why is it that nobody is talking about Mike Eufimia (sorry about the misspelling)
Just my 2 cents.

Because the subject of this thread is "Mosconi 526"

 

[LAlouie]

Sorry, but I think this might have been the most overrated record in pool.
Huge pockets and pro-8 table?

John Schmidt's 400+ might have been a better record.

Didn't Engert run close to 500. If no one is talking about Engert, no one should talk about Schmidt.

 

[jay helfert]

Because they only race to 150 balls now?
And that straight pool as the game of choice died a long time ago.

If they still played straight pool heavily today, I think Thorsten and John S would have broken that record.

John has played 14.1 heavily the last few years in attempts to break Mosconi's record on video. Ask him how easy it is to run 500 balls. Bob Jewett had the Straight Pool challenge for years at DCC and the high run was usually in the 150-200 range.

Joey, you are correct, 14.1 was the tournament game of choice back then. And there were many great Straight Pool players during that era. My point being that those players might have actually been better than today's players at this one game.

In my generation, Straight Pool was still an important game, and I saw Mizerak and Sigel in their prime. As much as I respect John and Thorsten's game, I don't think they play the game at quite the same level as The Miz and The Captain. There is more to Straight Pool than just running balls! If you ever saw Mizerak take those balls off the table and never have to shoot a hard shot, you would understand where I'm coming from. He was a Mosconi clone.

 

[KoolKat9Lives]

Does anyone know something about Earl's high run of 408? Was that a practice session? What kind of table?
No one really talks about it. 408 is STRONG for a 9 ball player! Or is he a 9 ball player???? :smile:

Table 6 at Breakers in Greensboro. It's a standard GCIII. He told me (@ a month ago while I was warming up on that table) he missed a straight in 6 ball after some patron walked up to him while he was down on the shot and asked him where the restroom was. Earl got up from the shot and pointed to the restroom. Then he got back down and stroked the fated shot. He didn't tell me if it was a match or not.

 

[Jason Robichaud]

2 hours and 20 minutes? Did Mosconi get on with it when he shot? He averaged 13 seconds per shot in the link. 526 at that clip could have been done in 1 hr 45 min. Seems unlikely that someone could maintain that focus for over 2 hours, unless that game became like aiming to him, just look at the table an know how to run it before putting a ball down.

 

[pdcue]

This post is in no way a disrespectful shot at Mr. Mosconi, he is a true legend, but why is it that nobody is talking about Mike Eufimia (sorry about the misspelling) and his well documented run of well over 600?? That run was witnessed by a ton of people but the recognition for the highest run always goes to Willie Mosconi! I just think that Mr. Eufimia's high run needs to be recognized more by the pool world as the true high run in straight pool. Again I mean no disrespect to Mr. Mosconi but what's true is true!
Just my 2 cents.

Because Mr Eufimia's run was done in PRACTICE.

Willie's was done in an exhibition.

Dale

 

[ctyhntr]

I was told Willie Mosconi had even higher runs practicing at home (600), than the 526 in exhibition. So, 526 wasn't his highest, it was his highest publicly acknowledged straight pool run.

Because Mr Eufimia's run was done in PRACTICE.

Willie's was done in an exhibition.

Dale

 

[ShootingArts]

that was Mosconi's gift

John has played 14.1 heavily the last few years in attempts to break Mosconi's record on video. Ask him how easy it is to run 500 balls. Bob Jewett had the Straight Pool challenge for years at DCC and the high run was usually in the 150-200 range.

Joey, you are correct, 14.1 was the tournament game of choice back then. And there were many great Straight Pool players during that era. My point being that those players might have actually been better than today's players at this one game.

In my generation, Straight Pool was still an important game, and I saw Mizerak and Sigel in their prime. As much as I respect John and Thorsten's game, I don't think they play the game at quite the same level as The Miz and The Captain. There is more to Straight Pool than just running balls! If you ever saw Mizerak take those balls off the table and never have to shoot a hard shot, you would understand where I'm coming from. He was a Mosconi clone.

I always thought that was Willie's gift and why he was so great for Brunswick. He made running balls look so easy that anyone watching an exhibition that didn't already know better would think they could buy a table and be doing much the same in a few months.

Hu