I'm curious about who that would have been. I'm guessing it was Cliff Thorburn.
I am 72 and was about 24-25 at the time, so I guess it was about 47-48 years ago. My player was "Little Oscar". He recognized the player and said "Do you know who that is?" I said "no". He told me and said he was the current World Champion Snooker Player. I said "goodbye Oscar" and that is when he said "No, he can't beat me on a bar table playing 9 ball with the big cue ball".
I don't know if he mentioned the name or not. It wouldn't have meant anything to me. I had never watched any form of pool on tv and knew less than nothing about snooker. I wish I did know.
They played for $20 a game and we got stuck $200 and I wanted to quit. Oscar said "let me play him one on nerve" (where you can't pay off if you lose). I was against that but he insisted. Oscar won back to $0. They upped the bet to $40 and the same exact thing happened again. When we got back to $0 again the guy quit us. I gave Oscar $40 for coming down to the bar to play him and that is all I remember.
The best players in our area, at the time, were Wade Crane who was going by the name Billy Johnson and Ronnie Allen I didn't hear the name Wade Crane until 40 years later. All I knew about pool was what little I picked up from local hustlers but some of them were pretty good. They played "one shot shoot out" 9 ball. No safeties. They just pushed out and accepted or declined the shot. Different era. (Southern Calif)
Last edited: