This is some great stuff here! I only listened to the first tape so far. I know Ronnie pretty well, but most of this stuff I never heard before.
Just get a load of what the great Ronnie Allen has to say about Harold Worst. Then you'll have a better understanding why I rate him so highly. Ronnie's stories about Harold are slight exaggerations, but basically accurate. He beat a select field of English Snooker players after he won the Three Cushion tourney in Belgium. But Harold knew how to play Snooker. He grew up with that game as well as Billiards in Grand Rapids. Ronnie didn't know that.
I had seen Harold play Cornbread in the finals of a big Snooker championship in Detroit in 1963. They both played great and I think Red just eased him out in the final game. These guys were running 60's and 70's on a tight table. They could both play jam up Snooker, and neither one of them could beat Sammy Blumenthal from Jacksonville back then. Snooker Sammy was the best American player, and he was second in North America to George Chenier from Canada.
Harold had won the 9-Ball and the Three Cushion titles at the same all around tourney in Detroit. So he had two firsts and a second. Red won the One Pocket division also, so he won two divisions too. Harold Worst could play any game on a pool or billiard table, and if given a little time, he could beat anyone. He was like an American version of Efren. With a little coaching he would have been able to challenge Ronnie in One Pocket. And if he had spent a few months practicing Snooker, he could have won in England too. He was that good! Just a once in a lifetime PHENOM. Kind of like the Jim Thorpe of billiard games.
IMHO! And I've seen 'em all over the last 40 years.