During the 1860's, billiards would be on the front page, and the civil war on page 3. It was the game, of kings and queens, all our presidents had a table and played. It was a true sport. A major one. Hoppe made a million a year, and after WWII, it all changed, began to fall apart, and pool took over and news coverage slowly stopped. By 1957, all the great stars had died, or retired, Hoppe, Greenleaf, Mosconi, Caras, were all gone.
The hustlers took over the game in 61 in Johnson City, the BCA closed its doors and ceased to exist for the next 9 years, the main movie was about a pool bum with no character, the music man dropped ya got trouble on everyone, and pool as a sport, was a dead duck with a bad reputation. Every movie in Hollywood showed the pool pro as a drug infested low rent punk. It never recovered from there, every year, it just slide further and further into the hole its in today.
The press never showed up after that, unless the place got raided or somebody got shot.
There was a survey done, on the top 100 sports writers in the country, on this very question, and all 100 voted, pool is not a sport. So that discussion is over, it does not matter what you guys feel about it, it only matters what the sports writers think.
A couple of years ago, this same group was asked to name the top 3 people in pool, and they answered Willie Mosconi, Minnesota Fats, none of them knew both of them has been dead for 15 years, and the black widow was the only alive person they knew about. They have no clue who we are, or what we are doing. They don’t know who any of our top pool or billiard or snooker or artistic stars are today. They never heard of Steve Davis, Raymond Cuelemans, Johnny, Earl, Efren or Immonen or Mike Massey.
It is a back room game, played by ugly people. When we have no pro men’s tour, we are not a sport. When the main tour is women, who have 60 show up to split 10K, we are not a sport. The last placed player in a golf tourney gets 15K, the winner a million.
We are a bad sick joke to the real sports world playing for chump change, and half the time the pros get paid with rubber checks that bounce. That shows the entire thing is crooked as a $3 bill. What corporate sponser would want a piece of this mess.
That is where we are, going down hard and fast by the bow like the Titanic. And the BCA sits there with their head so far up their ass they will never see daylight. They are now today virtually bankrupt as well, their 40 person staff has been reduced to just a couple of people. They can’t even run a trade show which they have also ran into the ground now drawing less than 200 booths.
Pool is dead. Pro pool is gone. The only thing that is alive and well, is the amateur leagues which keeps the core game alive.
There is your answer, I did not write it, I only report it, like it is, so please don’t do like you all usually do and shoot and kill the messenger, because you guys can’t accept what you are, or what you are a part of?
Once more, there is your truth, and I can clearly see, none of you, can deal with the truth here. When you hear anything you do not like, or do not believe in, you want to degrade and kill off that source.
None of you can deal with the truth. That is your major problem.
I strongly suggest that you all get out of that incestuous club you are in, and try and see out, from beyond your closed cocoon you are all now trapped inside of. Try and see your selves, as the real world actually sees you.
Now the next 3 people who attack me over this, they will remind me of those 3 monkeys, you know, the ones with one has his hands over his ears, the other one over his eyes, the other one I think his fist is up his arse, or its somewhere where it is not supposed to be for sure.
I love this game, I would love to be a part of it coming back. But the first step is to stop Bull s******* each other and accept what we are and where we are, then actually do something to reverse this slide.
All the magazines and the BCA does, is put out BS about how great everything is, and you guys are going along with this BS. How about a revolt, a demand by the core group to change all of this. These guys at the top, have already given up on it all, and all they are doing, is pealing off of the top, what they can, as it sinks. You, the players, the game, they could care less about.
