Jean Balukas - why did she stop?

I've actually seen her recently at Hall of Fame billiards here in Brooklyn. I believe her family runs the joint. I haven't spoken to her, and was actually wondering the samething as you.

Might answer some........

9BallBust-O said:

I am just curious is anyone knows why she stoped being as excellent as she was. Does anyone know why she has/had no interest in the ITP King of the Hill HOF. Did something bad happen in the past? Get a bad taste for the sport? Didnt she stop playing really young? I mean I hear there was just no woman that could touch her at that time and that even men had some troubles, some great men. Thanks for the info

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Ref: answers.com

Jean Balukas (June 28, 1959 – ?), an American billiards player from Brooklyn, New York, ranks among the stellar females players in the history of the sport. Many aficionados place her as the greatest female player ever.

Balukas' rise through the ranks from a young age is legendary. She began playing at four years of age and competed in her first Billiard Congress of America U.S. Open at a precocious nine, taking seventh place. At twelve she won her first BCA title and at fourteen her first national women's championship. Her subsequent titles include seven BCA U.S. Open straight pool titles, six World Open titles and numerous 9-ball and straight pool first place finishes. She was inducted into the BCA's hall of fame in 1985 with the added honor of being its youngest inductee.


Dissension among the ranks

In the mid to late 1980s, a rancorous dispute occurred in the Womens Professional Billiards Association in which Balukas was accused of unprofessional conduct. Balukas vehemently denied the charges. There were countercharges of professional jealousy based on Balukas' then virtual domination of women's professional pool. The result was that Balukas reportedly quit the sport in disgust rather than accept professional sanction. Although she no longer competes professionally, Balukas helps run her family's billiard parlor, Hall of Fame Billiards, located in Brooklyn, New York.

rest of the story - incident with Robin Bell

http://marybruno.com/clips/mb_toogood.html

emptypockets said:

http://marybruno.com/clips/mb_toogood.html

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Great story!! So that's what happened.

Jeffrey Gayle said:

Great story!! So that's what happened.

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She was playing Robin Bell ( Dodson now ).
Robin slopped a 9 in.
She tells Robin sumthin about slopping the 9 and she should earn her victory or sumthin like that.
Robin reports her and Jean was fined.
Jean said up yours and retired.

Told to me. How can I check authenticity?

Are you kidding me?

Jean got fined for saying, 'Beat me with skill, not luck'. What a pansy Robin was. I met and liked Robin very much in Vegas, but I have also heard that she was no angel before he name became Dodson, and became a Christian afterwards.

I guess I could have been fined for saying, 'You lucky SOB' after getting snapped on several times, huh?

Seems like a shame that a good friendship should be ruined over something so trivial?

Robin should match up with Earl or Jack Hynes if she thinks Jean wasn't nice ..... lol

Snapshot9 said:

Jean got fined for saying, 'Beat me with skill, not luck'. What a pansy Robin was. I met and liked Robin very much in Vegas, but I have also heard that she was no angel before he name became Dodson, and became a Christian afterwards.

I guess I could have been fined for saying, 'You lucky SOB' after getting snapped on several times, huh?

Seems like a shame that a good friendship should be ruined over something so trivial?

Robin should match up with Earl or Jack Hynes if she thinks Jean wasn't nice ..... lol

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I disagree.
If you are a pro player, you should respect your peers.
One way to show respect is to show good sportsmanship.
No talking trash in the middle of the match.
Leave that to hockey and basketball players.

If Balukas was wearing a mike and knew that everything she said would be audible to the entire audience and on the TV recording, then her actions were inappropriate.

She's got a point that the people punishing her shouldn't be current tour players. That's a bad system all around.

Snapshot9 said:

Jean got fined for saying, 'Beat me with skill, not luck'. What a pansy Robin was. I met and liked Robin very much in Vegas, but I have also heard that she was no angel before he name became Dodson, and became a Christian afterwards.

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You met her once and now you know the story and can come to the conclusion that she was a pansy? I've known her for about 16 or 17 years, before she was "Robin Dodson", and she was already a Christian when I met her. There was a time when we were actually pretty good friends and I saw her on a daily basis. At that time, Robin Bell's "wild days" were already long behind her. In fact, the stories she would tell me just seemed so unbelievable, given what I knew of her, that I would often times ask her to "tell me a Robin Bell story" (she knew what I meant - I wanted to hear of her pre-Christian days). Meanwhile, that really has nothing to do with what happened during her match with Jean. It's true. Jean said something along the lines of "if you're going to beat me, beat with me with skill, not luck". Robin told me the story and, to be honest, I can sympathize. At the time, Jean completely dominated women's pool. Aside from just being the best player out there, by far, most of the women were scared to death whenever they had to play her. So, according to Robin, this one particular match she was finally playing well against Jean. Not to say she'd beat her when she played well but the point is that, not only did Jean play heads and shoulders above the other girls, but Robin (and most of the other girls) would play bad on top of it because they were scared to shoot at her. So, back to the story, Robin felt she was playing well this particular match and she was ahead. At one point, she got a lucky roll and that's when Jean made her comment. Now, whether you want to think Robin should have been more thick-skinned than this or not, the comment apparently rattled her and she felt like she really dogged it after that because she was rattled. Jean came back and won the match. Afterward, Robin went and reported the incident. That's pretty much the story as Robin told it to me. The WPBA fined Jean $200, Jean refused to pay, and that was that. Years later the WPBA (after breaking away from the MPBA) decided that it had been long enough and waved the $200 fine clearing the way for Jean to return. As we all know, Jean never did return.

Was it a petty dispute? I don't know. Sportsmanship should count for something. If you were a PGA touring pro and you said something like that to a guy you were in a playoff with, for example, I can't be certain, but I think that the PGA would fine the player who said it. Hell, you'd be disqualifed from a tournament for tapping down a spike mark! How much unsportsmanship-like conduct is acceptable in professional pool? Where is the line drawn? Personally, I get tired of playing people who do things that are unsportsmanlike and I wish that rules against that behavior would actually be enforced.

Was it a petty dispute? I don't know. Sportsmanship should count for something. If you were a PGA touring pro and you said something like that to a guy you were in a playoff with, for example, I can't be certain, but I think that the PGA would fine the player who said it. Hell, you'd be disqualifed from a tournament for tapping down a spike mark! How much unsportsmanship-like conduct is acceptable in professional pool? Where is the line drawn? Personally, I get tired of playing people who do things that are unsportsmanlike and I wish that rules against that behavior would actually be enforced.


Tap, tap, tap.

I was a fan of women's pool even back then. I know both Robin and Jean and have heard both their accounts of what happened. Despite all this, there remains a lot of room for speculation.

It's all true. Jean made a few remarks that Robin didn't like and a protest was filed and a fine assessed. Jean refused to pay it, but the story of why she gave pro pool up requires some speculation. After all ---

1) Jean was a gifted all-around athlete, especially proficient at basketball, golf, and bowling, and craved to compete in many areas of sport.

2) There was little left for Jean to achieve in pool and nobody ever emerged that could compete with her for #1. Allison Fisher has had Karen Corr to push her for the last seven years, but nobody ever threatened Jean's domination of women's pool.

3) One must consider the possibility that once Jean had been away from the game for a while, she didn't really miss it. While her refusal to pay the fine assessed against her was the initial reason she walked away, I suspect the reason she stayed away is that she realized she didn't miss women's pro pool.

Although the story wasn't written this way, in so many ways, Jean walked away on her own terms, atop the sport and indisputably the best ever in her sport.

Jean Balukas and women's pro pool are thriving today, and here's to a great future for both.

saw it on espn

i saw the match that the incedent took place.jean was out of line,i believe that the ref even came over and told her somthing.i believe i have the incident on tape.i will have to look.if i do i will post the espn aired version,word for word as it aired.

EP, thanks for that bit of info. I wish I lived in Brooklyn New York. I would put my two years of Psychology to work on Jean. I like her and have never met her let alone seen her play.
JoeyA

emptypockets said:

http://marybruno.com/clips/mb_toogood.html

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I have met Jean a couple times. This one was in Chicago. What a sweet, accommodating lady. It was a great honor for me!

> There is more to this than has been posted here. The referee in that match was Joe Kerr,who was head of the MPBA at the time,and he said something to her about her comments. Someone in the crowd heckled her somewhat,and a piece of chalk was thrown,Joe spoke to her again,and words were exchanged,and a name usually associated with a large drainage ditch was used. The chalk-throwing incident was supposed to be the real reason for the fine. There was an earlier,unrelated 200 dollar fine assessed to Jean for some minor dress-code violation that was also left unpaid from a previous tournament. In addition to also playing in and cashing in 3-4 men's Tour events,at the time of the Brunswick tournament she had won literally 16 events in a row. Tommy D.

Why Jean quit?

The link to the newspaper article was very apropos. The story related there is quite accurate.

I have known Jean since she was a little 11 year old playing with a cue longer than her. I saw her beat Dorothy Wise for the women's title at age 13.

Several times after she retired I attempted to get her to play again. More than once she related to me that she was burned out on Pool. Remember she had been playing non stop from age 4 to 29. That's twenty five long years as a poolplayer. That is a long career for anyone.

As far as the fine, she was not allowed to appeal it and in my opinion it was a bit harsh. Her comments would go unnoticed in a mens event. If Robin got sharked by it, then she was a little too thin skinned. That's all part of Pool. I've seen far worse in every mens tournament I've ever worked.

As someone else said, Jean had won sixteen tournaments in a row. The other women were not real happy about her domination. I wonder how many of them called Jean to ask her to come back and play. Try zero.

Many times I was asked how Jean would have done with Allison and Karen.
My personal opinion is that Jean would not have been the dominant player anymore, but she would win her share of tournaments. Jean had a strong will to win and the talent to back it up. Overall her game matched up good against the best women today. She could have cranked it up a notch if she had to.

I saw her play against the men and she had to play better than before. She won matches against many top players, including Buddy, Keith and Lebron to name a few. She finished in the top sixteen with all the top men present.
If she had continued, I expect she would have done even better, maybe even won a tournament.

It's kind of like comparing Eddie Kelly to Earl. Different eras, different game in many respects. But remember Kelly came back after many years off and won Grady's big One Pocket tournament in Reno in 1991. All the top players were there. The cream always rises to the top. Kelly and Cornbread played a great match in the finals.

And if Jean had decided to come back, I suspect she would still be a tough match for anyone.

If they were miked up, then there must have been cameras rolling, too. How do we get ESPN to show it?

Someone's always saying that what pool needs is some "personality"/human interest. Seems like seeing Jean winning the next seven games would be fun to watch.