Toddbow said:
Larry,
I originally posted my question to you about Isis (sorry for the previous mispelling) Pool Hall because I've heard stories of this place my entire life. I told my Dad I wouldn't post anymore, but I couldn't resist. The picture you painted of this place is not what has been told to me.
Reno Forrest ran Isis and I am told was one of the best guys around. Hustlers hung out there I can agree with you on that. But, I don't remember being told any meatwagon stories. I remember of match-ups, mediocre players playing better players with a good spot. I've heard stories of a pool game being played in the middle of August when it was 100 degrees and the better player had to play with a coat on (one that had been left from winter). I've heard so many one-handed and jacked up pool stories I can't remember them all. I heard of a guy losing thousands of dollars, kept going busted. He would walk out and come back in with more money. Someone asked him where he kept getting the money and he replied "I robbed a bank" and no one believed him till the cops showed up a couple of hours later and hauled him off.......for robbing a bank. I've heard of a match-up on 8 ball on a race to seven when one guy breaks and runs 7 racks. The other guy asks for a spot and is refused. The winner says "I can't give you a spot because I don't know how you play".
Most of the players I listed in my first post were average players and if I can remember correctly I think Bill Lawson and Rags were about the best players around at that time, with several others right there close. Mosconi and Fats weren't afraid to go there, nor Fast Eddie Felson when they were in town. I am told Isis was THE PLACE for pool players in the 60's when going through KCMO, 2 blocks from your home on 31st and Troost. Wonderboy got his nickname because he worked at Wonderbread.
One thing I think is for sure, if you lived in KC in the 60's, and were a pool player.......Isis is where you would want to be.
Tell me some stories on Fast Eddie Felson. I am interested in those,as well.
Was he from southern Missouri?
The area around it was called the snake pit. It was called the snake pit for that is what it was. My stories were from the area, not from that specific pool hall. There were other places to play pool. Many bars you could play in. I went in there, I was not afraid to go in any place. This place was just not my cup of tea. Look at what you posted, the guy is going out, robbing a bank with a gun, coming back in the room to play with the money he just robbed. Those are not the kind of people I want to gamble with. I told you I was a down town player. I told you I had no interest in playing any top sticks and I only hustled drunks and weak prey. I did not want any glory, just the money. Staying unkown was the key to that. I would never play any top stick, beat that guy and your action is killed in that town immediately. Then you are giving every punk in town the 7 and the snap. My game was getting the 7 and the snap when I should be giving the 7 and the snap.
I answered you honestly as best I could sir and this thread moves off the main page. You bring it back to the main page to now post what? It reads like to me you are saying I am a fraud, I was never there or if so I would have hung out in this place and been well known. That is why you brought this back up to expose me as a liar? Do I give you a fair read out on this or what here? Gee's, I did not need that sir, nor did I deserve that.
You did not want my stories of that place or era, it sounds like me you just wanted to expose me as a fraud who was making it all up. There fore I will waste no more time telling you anything else. It sounds like to me, you know much more than me any way. You are a good story teller, I enjoyed what you wrote. The greatest one handed player of all time was playing at 46th and troost every day during lunch at Pauls, his name was Omaha Fat. I was there watching every move the guy made, I was fascinated by this hustler. I did not give a she yet what was going on at the ice, to be perfectly frank with you. If I wanted to see real action, I went and hung out for a week at Johnston city, then I got to see the top 100 hustlers on earth match up and get down.
The Ice,That was not my home room or my hang out. I tried to tell you I did not know most of those people. I also told you I moved out of that area well before the 60's. I can count the times on both hands I had ever been in that room.
You wrote: .. I've heard of a match-up on 8 ball on a race to seven when one guy breaks and runs 7 racks. The other guy asks for a spot and is refused. The winner says "I can't give you a spot because I don't know how you play".
FL RESPONDS: That was the main reason I tried to tell you why I did not play there, it was full of run out hustlers. Too many hustlers, too few marks and sausages. I played that guy twice. Both times the guy wins the lag and runs 5 racks on me in a row. Both times I pulled up, paid the guy and walked out. Why keep paying him to watch the guy run 7 or 10 racks, I knew I could not fade that so why throw my money at him. During that early 60's era I was just a teenager and my game had not achieved it's full level of where it would go. If you rounded up all the usualy suspects, about the best I was might have been 11th out of that group. Hell the top 10 if they were around today and in their prime could all go on the current tour and tear a new one. The top 10 in that city during the early 60's were some of the finest sticks I ever saw play pool. The best I ever got might have been 50th in the country and that was a decade later. I was never the top stick, never said I was, never tried to be. If that was what you wanted me to pretend to be, sorry sir I disappointed you with the truth here.
What am I today, I don't play any one for money. I don't do 9 ball competitions. I do two things.
(1) I teach pool and am very good at that
(2) I do trick shot shows and I am also very good at that.
(3) Soon I will begin playing on the world IAPA Arstistic tour
That is who I am sir, it does not go any deeper than that.
Yes I know about Wonder Bread, is was on 30th and Troost, on the corner a 3 story factory, wholesale, you could not walk in and buy the bread. I lived one block from it. During the summers we had no AC and our windows would be open and the smell would come in, it was a wonderful smell and it would make you hungry. They would be baking bread all night long, you relived that memory and that smell from a half centry ago is coming back to me now, I thank you for that.
During the 60's I was playing on troost but not on 31st but on 46th. Most of my time was hanging around Omaha Fat, Martin Kiaman, who could give
fatty the 7. The reason the Ice caught a lot of top action during the early 60's was the downtown rooms which ranked in the top 5 of all time I was playing in all closed. Pool basically collapsed in the late 50's and did not do a revival until the Hustler movie came out in 1961. Pool did not get back on a roll until 63. Every room has it's prime, its time, and the Ice had its, I just choose not to be a part of it. I do have freedom of choice where to play and hang out do I not?
Even in Atlanta today I am comped to play in the main action room and you rarely see me in there. I prefer places the gamblers do not hang out in. I like quiet places, quiet, like a church. No pin ball, no bowling alley, no bar, just pool mister. Rack em Sausage.
The hustler from south Missouri was from Joplin. He was working NYC during this time. In the movie, Guys and dolls he was portrayed by Marlon Brando. He was the greatest golf and pool hustler and con I ever saw work. I have all of his stories, but you now get none of them. His name was Titanic Thompson, he was called Ti. Martin Kiaman lived in Des Moines, Fatty lived in southern Illinois, around the Johnston city area. That area was called little Egypt.
Fast Eddy Felson was never in the ice because he was a fictional character invented by Tevis, he never existed. Fast Eddy Parker came up in my home room down town in KCMO in Kling and Allens. He said he was the one and he gave the hustler story to Tevis. He passed a lie dectector test on this. In recent years he was living in Universal City,Texas and he recently passed away doing a show in South Padre Island, Tx. There really was a Fast Eddy, he was my friend. His name was Fast Eddy Parker, not Felson. There really was a Minnesota Fats, his name was Rudolph Walderone.
