calling a ball from the unbroken rack has a long history.
In November, on Friday the thirteenth, I ran 365 while playing Nixon Jones in Wilmington, North Carolina. I knew Nixon fairly well. He was the owner of the establishment, and I had played there quite often when I was in that part of the country. What was most interesting about that game was that I made the run off my own break. I called the one ball, at the front of the triangle, in the left side pocket. It’s a shot that can be made maybe one time in three, but you can never take a chance on it in a tournament. What you do is hit the cue ball high and drive it into the right side of the one ball. If you hit the cue ball in the center, it will force the object ball forward; if you hit it high, with force-follow, the one will carom and bounce back toward the left side. On this occasion, the ball dropped in the pocket and I went on from there, without missing, for more than an hour and a half.
Cohen, Stanley; Mosconi, Willie. Willie's Game: An Autobiography . Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.