Comments on Willie Moscont

Ken_4fun said:
Well they have that competition at the DCC, and it seems to me that most of them dont even break 100, let alone 526.

Again, I say, it can be done but its no cake walk.

No disrespect to either player, but wasnt John Schmidt and Danny Harriman the top 14.1 players at one time?

I think John was called Mr. 400. Im old, maybe I got this wrong too.

Ken
Click to expand...

John ran 400+ on a GC.
Close to 300 on a Diamond.

Efren ran some 130+ and 140+ in the two 14.1 tournaments he participated in.
Won the first one and placed second in the second one.

In watching Hohmann and Appleton practice, imo they tighter mechanics than Mosconi. Appleton's practice sessions are freaking unreal.
If he had to play 14.1 exhibitions week in week out for years, imo he would run 526 on those 5" corners .
Same goes for Hohmann, Engert and Efren when Efren was in his 30's.
Hell, Efren was running 15-ball rotation right handed and left handed at Hard Times .
 
The thing that people don't realize is after say even 2-3 racks(40-50 balls) you get zoned in so much that missing a ball isn't so much the issue in a high run,no matter what table or pocket size, but more importantly getting the balls spread and continuing to have good angles and break shots is harder to do 30 times in a row then actually running the balls. Think about the precision patterns position play ability to read racks control multiple balls break out clusters etc etc. these are more often inning Enders than just missing a shot when it comes to the best players in the world.
 
There is an interview somewhere with SVB and they brought up Mosconi's record. Shane had no idea what the # of balls ran were and didn't seem too interested in it. If guys like SVB, Appleton, and Wu started to play only straight pool day in and day out I don't think the record would last another year. jmho
 
JoeyInCali said:
Because nobody gets paid to play straight pool exhibition on those tables anymore.
Hohmann would have run 526 now if he had been getting paid to do the same exhibition for a decade.
Click to expand...


lol, Hohmann would not only give his left nut but probably his first born to break the record -- for *nothing* but pride.

Lou Figueroa
 
Bavafongoul said:
Sad to read what appears to be resentment being expressed by Grady Matthews.
I don't know that to be be true but it happens in every other sport why not pool.
It sure sounds like that based upon Willie's accomplishments & his enormous talent.

Except for the stubborn minded, Jack Nicklaus is indeed the greatest golfer of all time.
Well, one would have to be narrow minded to quarrel that Willie Mosconi was the greatest.
His tournament record on 10' tables that the greatest legends in pool competed on is unmatched.

In tournaments, Willie played on whatever table was used but exhibitions, he had to use Brunswick.
Touring pros under contract to Brunswick were contractually obligated to use their sponsor's tables.
Pockets weren't made bigger for Willie and he didn't get to pick the table models either or alter them.

It is interesting how decades after his passing, Willie still is the yardstick everyone gets compared with.
Mr. Mosconi was a very rare talent that has yet to be appear again and isn't likely to any time soon.

I wonder how many of the posters have actually played much straight pool on a ten (10) ft pool table?
Anyone that has will be in awe of his tournament runouts unmatched to this day even on smaller 9ft tables.



Matt B.
Click to expand...


I wonder how many actually saw him play, even well past his prime, when he was just doing exhibitions after having had a stroke.

If you saw him play you would know he was the greatest.

Lou Figueroa
 
Last edited:
Low500 said:
I'm inclined to go along with Grady Matthews' observations. Grady was on top of the pool action in this country.
As far as "documentation and witnesses" go.......there were hundreds of witnesses and documentation in Jewish history to the resurrected Jesus Christ too. Yet, today, most of the world says it was "all fantasyland"......(no video, you know).
Most of that straight pool history reminds me of old men living in the past and longing for the days of hundreds of pool rooms in NYC.
Click to expand...


lol. OK, now I know who you are. I've popped you in the bit bin a couple of times before. Now go join your other aliases down there. You had me fooled for a while but this last rash of trolling gave you away.

Bye, bye.

Lou Figueroa
 
bstroud said:
Lou,

You are correct.

I had the privilege of knowing all the players you listed (Mosconi, Greenleaf, Crane, Caras, Procita, Lassiter, Danny Jones, Joe Balsis, Weenie Beanie, Cowboy Jimmy Moore and the rest. Except Greenleaf.

I gambled with Lassiter, Danny Jones, Joe Balsis, Weenie Beanie, and many others from that era. You left out Clem, Cotton, Earl H., Taylor, and a large number of really great players. Not to mention Fatty.

It was a Golden Era to be a pool player and just travel the US and find a game wherever you stopped. What a way to make a good living.

I remember in 1958 during the summer before going back to high school my sister asked me when I was going to get a summer job. I didn't say anything and just reached into my jeans pocket to make sure the $5000.00 I had made so far that summer from playing pool was still there. It was.

Bill S.
Click to expand...


wow. Bill, how cool to have seen those guys. You should write something up about all of them. I'd love to hear more about your recollections.

Lou Figueroa
 
J SCHWARZ said:
There is an interview somewhere with SVB and they brought up Mosconi's record. Shane had no idea what the # of balls ran were and didn't seem too interested in it. If guys like SVB, Appleton, and Wu started to play only straight pool day in and day out I don't think the record would last another year. jmho
Click to expand...

ha ha, yeah, right. Because Sigel, Varner, Hopkins, and Mizerak, who were 14.1 gods, and played it every day for 30 years, broke Mosconi's record in one year;)
 
Dan White said:
You are assuming he ran balls in exhibition until he missed. That didn't happen. He would run 100 or 150 and then just stop playing. Why on earth would he try to run more when he had another event to go to? On this one occasion, he gave it a shot just for sh!its and giggles and managed 526. You never hear stories of Mosconi running 294 balls in exhibition and missing, or 396 balls and missing, do you? It's not like he was attempting runs like this every day.

If someone came to him and offered $100,000 for every run he could make over 1000 balls, he might well have died a very rich man.
Click to expand...


Yes, nobody talks about the flip side.

Mosconi was all about the money to support his family. If someone back in the day put up, let's say $50,000 for a big run with witnesses, he would have been all over it. Almost every night he'd put down his cue at the end of a 100 ball run. If he cared squat about a high run record he could have continued 300 days out of the year and probably run who knows what. On that one night he only continued at the urging of the crowd in attendance.

Set up under ideal conditions, like you see some of todays 14.1 specialists performing on video -- with a perfect table, newer cloth, new polished balls, no audience or distractions, their favorite music playing in the background -- good grief, the record could easily be 1,000.

Lou Figueroa
 
Speaking of Grady, I personally saw him perform an exhibition around 1999 at Drexeline Billiards in Philly. The room is a straight pool player's room. All GC's. All 760 cloth (the best for straight pool). Nice and cold AC going during the exhibiiton. Polished centennial balls. Grady said he would attempt to run 100 balls. He tried 3 innings. I think his high was about 25. I think he was about 50 years old in 1999. Mosconi was still running 100 at the drop of a hat at that age. Maybe he was just hating on Mosconi when he wrote those comments?
 
526...

Running hundreds every day, in random pool rooms all over the place, on command.

Meh, every pool player can do that. Just ask them.

The fact is they can't, so they haven't. That's all there is to it.


Am I the only one getting sick and tired of pool player excuses?

"I won't get out of bed for less than 2k". Well, you're living with your girlfriend with her picking up the checks...so maybe you should? Just a suggestion.

"I could play straight pool if there was more money in it". Well there is no money in pool, period, so what is stopping you? Just a question. I guess you'd have to give up your lavish and indulgent lifestyle, lol.

"I don't want to go abroad". That is why you won't win the WPC. Just saying.

"Running 300 on a Diamond is more difficult than Mosconis record". Well, you may be interested to know that he also ran over 300 on a ten footer. Those had 4.5 inch pockets, some even smaller. Sooo, maybe he wasn't so bad after all? I mean he won in an era where everyone played straight pool pretty much exclusively and there was actual money to be made, but I'm sure none of those people could play. The only one of the modern players who has an actual case to make is Thomas Engert. His run may have been better than Mosconis. All the others are full of crap!
 
Last edited:
Straightpool_99 said:
526...

Running hundreds every day, in random pool rooms all over the place, on command.

Meh, every pool player can do that. Just ask them.

The fact is they can't, so they haven't. That's all there is to it.


Am I the only one getting sick and tired of pool player excuses?

"I won't get out of bed for less than 2k". Well, you're living with your girlfriend with her picking up the checks...so maybe you should? Just a suggestion.

"I could play straight pool if there was more money in it". Well there is no money in pool, period, so what is stopping you? Just a question. I guess you'd have to give up your lavish and indulgent lifestyle, lol.

"I don't want to go abroad". That is why you won't win the WPC. Just saying.

"Running 300 on a Diamond is more difficult than Mosconis record". Well, you may be interested to know that he also ran over 300 on a ten footer. Those had 4.5 inch pockets, some even smaller. Sooo, maybe he wasn't so bad after all? I mean he won in an era where everyone played straight pool pretty much exclusively and there was actual money to be made, but I'm sure none of those people could play.
Click to expand...


For years and years Mosconi played against fields of straight pool monsters who played nothing else. Not a bunch of 9ball transplants who shot straight but didn't know the game.

Lou Figueroa
 
bstroud said:
Lasttime I looked in the record book it was Procita but that was a long time ago.
Perhaps there are newer records.
...
Click to expand...

Here is a short quote from one of George Fels' last columns.

Gloversville is where the older, and somewhat more obscure, Joe Procita was born. Many readers of this magazine will not be old enough to remember him, but his long-run record of 182 (on a 5' x 10' table) stood for decades until Darren Appleton plowed it under in the fall of '13. Procita also enjoyed a few years when he was considered to be one of America's top three in both pool (back when 14.1 was the only game that counted) and billiards. ​

Strangely enough, Procita's run was against Mosconi. So far as I know, Mosconi never ran 160 in competition which is strange considering how many long (1000+ points) matches he played.

Appleton ran 200 and out in the semifinals of a tournament against Bustamante. That is the present high run in tournament match play. I think 225 is the current high run in the high run contests.
 
Last edited:
Bob Jewett said:
Here is a short quote from one of George Fels' last columns.

Gloversville is where the older, and somewhat more obscure, Joe Procita was born. Many readers of this magazine will not be old enough to remember him, but his long-run record of 182 (on a 5' x 10' table) stood for decades until Darren Appleton plowed it under in the fall of '13. Procita also enjoyed a few years when he was considered to be one of America's top three in both pool (back when 14.1 was the only game that counted) and billiards. ​

Strangely enough, Procita's run was against Mosconi. So far as I know, Mosconi never ran 160 in competition which is strange considering how many long (1000+ points) matches he played.

Appleton ran 200 and out in the semifinals of a tournament against Bustamante. That is the present high run in tournament match play. I think 225 is the current high run in the high run contests.
Click to expand...

Bob - do you think maybe the style of play bears on the comment in bold? Mosconi was considered an aggressive player. I recall him saying somewhere that Crane would have won more championships had he been a little more aggressive/offense minded. To run more than 150 or 160 balls might take a level of risk that even Mosconi wasn't willing to take in tournament play. Exhibition play, of course, encourages crazy shots to keep the run going.

By today's standards I guess Mosconi might be considered timid (just a guess). I don't think today's players have heard of a thing called "safety play." lol.
 
its hard to run 160 when the game is over at 125 or 150.

ive been to a few of his exhibitions and they ended quickly after he ran out like a 100.
he told a couple short stories , signed autographs and headed for the door.

however straight pool is played entirely different nowadays with the fast cloth and lively balls. you get to break them open . back then you broke out just a few at at time and did that over and over.

if you went hard into the pack good chance you would end up in there.

same reason you didnt see ten packs in 9 ball. and we played shootout so you didnt have to go for low percentage shots and ended your runs.
 
Low500 said:
Absolutely!
Jayson Shaw, Appleton, or one of their running mates would be long gone with that money.
I wish someone would post only $10,000...that would get those hungry wolves out for some fresh blood.
I'd bet a little of my own money that one of them would, under the stated conditions, bust that record run in 45 days or less.
Keep on truckin'
:thumbup:
Click to expand...

Thank you for finally demonstrating that you are a troll of the first order.

FWIW - if you knew anything about pool at all you would understand neither of those
players you mention are within a mile of Mosconi's speed at 14.1

Dale
 
Logandgriff said:
I suggest that some pool company or rich pool patron secure a meeting room for several months at a Las Vegas hotel with a first class eight foot Brunswick pool table set up just like the one Mosconi used for his record. Then invite the world's top pool players to each come for two days and have the room to themselves to try to run 527, with a $50,000 cash prize. Each player would sign up for two reserved days and could play as little or as much as the player desired in those two days to try to beat Mosconi's record. It would all be videoed and there would be a first class referee on hand at all times to make sure everything was done properly. Tickets could be sold (or given) to people who wanted to watch.

Then we could put to rest all these arguments about whether current players could or could not beat 526.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

I think that wouldn't come within mile of equaling Willie's accomplishment.

Dale(who is liking the mile thing today)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top