1990s 9-ball McCready vs. Paez

[billb]

Keith remained in prime form through the 80s. Color of Money in 85 fueled more drive and confidence to wear the World gets the ,8. The pool world was much smaller then and started to change with the Filipino invasion followed by Europeans, Orientals and others.
In watching hundreds of tournaments at HT in the nineties and speaking with those in the know I heard often Keith was past his prime and a half ball behind the world class players which is nothing to be ashamed of because you are capable of beating anyone on a given day.
Keith was a money player foremost and I am sure if you compared his tournament winnings to his net earnings gambling it wouldn't be close. He could have negotiated out of those rule changes in arranging a gambling match. And he played all games where these rule changes don't matter.
I love this generation of players and how the globalization has raised the level of play, popularity and prize money. The prize money in the U.S. Open went from $8500 in 1980 to $41000 in 1990 to ,$211,000.in 2000 to half million today. The World 9 ball this year had a million dollar purse. Of course you have to be an elite player to cash in, cover expenses and make a profit. There are so many stone cold killers today, many unknown. They don't miss often and on much tighter pockets than the buckets of the early years. Players in the UK who grew up.playing snooker found nine ball easy and after learning the nuances like safety play were able to compete at the highest levels.
Hats off to SVB for all the success he has had and money won during his career during the toughest era in pool.
Do you think he wishes he played during the ,"glory years," of the 70s and 80s considering the paltry payouts,?
The American players in the 80s shot themselves in the foot when they refused to join forces with the women to form one tour that would have raised the profile and prize money in pool. Some resented foreign.players thinking this is a tour for Americans.
I realize how nostalgic and reminiscent of the past people can be. Think Springsteen's Glory Days. Let's be real though this era of pool is played at a higher level.

I see the scenario today as much more of a business model as opposed to pool players looking for the next quick score. I agree with your SVB comments too. To sustain things at such a high level for so long is incredible. He is a pool playing businessman who seems to have it figured out. I am sure he has received some very valuable advice from friends and family over his career to help steer him in the right financial direction. But ultimately, it was his time, his money and his game to control. He seems to be in a phenomenal spot. Kudos to him for sure.

With all due respect, most of the players from yesteryear werent pool playing businessmen or women. Some absolutely were though....Miz, Varner, Ewa, Efren, Jeanette....they come to mind. On the surface, it appears that they parlayed their abilities and their brand into a comfortable life at the time and into their twilight years. Others, while maybe having been at the absolute top of the pool world at one point and some having made 6 figures 25 years ago, arent necessarily doing so hot these days. Again, I am not judging. Its their life. I am just piggy backing on the idea of pool being global has changed the dynamic and how the money has changed. Its harder to win. But there appears to be a larger audience, so a player becoming a brand of some sort probably equals dollars and cents beyond prize money.

Keith, at most any point in his career, would've certainly been someone who could've cashed in on the organized match ups of today. I am sure he could easily have found backers and couldve drawn nice viewership numbers which hopefully he could have parlayed into dollars whether he won or lost the money match. And possibly some sort of appearance fee or expenses paid just to come play. Imagine being able to watch pool at a really high level for some sort of exorbitant amount of money with the constant back and forth between Keith and someone of a similar personality (especially if they were fitted with mics). Would that be for everyone? Probably not. But I would love it. It may not take pool mainstream but it would certainly be a product that I dont believe has ever been produced in the pool world. I would certainly tune in.

JAM- You would've had to be his agent with all the appearance deals that would've been chasing him down.

 

[JAM]

I always love reading your stories and input. Being a Marylander and knowing many of the characters that you reference from years past, your stories make for even better reading than many of the posts I see about road life.

Geese was.....well.....Geese. The one and only. Him and Keith together had to be absolutely hilarious.

Did you ever cross paths with Barry Jones? He played all over the place but I specifically crossed paths with him at the Champions on the Golden Mile in Frederick. Nice guy who could drop one liners with the best of them. Sadly, I believe Barry passed from cancer a number of years ago.

When you say "Barry Jones," do you mean Punky? Geese snuck in on Punky in Hagerstown a few times back in the early '80s. He was a well-known action player and could play on the big table and the bar box, and as most old-school players, Punky could play all games. He wasn't a one-trick pony.

Keith McCready did a charity event in Pennsylvania at an Elks Club, and the place was really cool with lots of pool peeps. They had auctions for money that was donated to a medical charity. We were sitting at the bar, and this gentleman initiates a conversation with Keith, stating that he wouldn't mind playing him some with a spot. I looked at the guy long and hard and realized it was Punky, who truly did not need as big a spot as he was asking for.

 

[JAM]

I see the scenario today as much more of a business model as opposed to pool players looking for the next quick score. I agree with your SVB comments too. To sustain things at such a high level for so long is incredible. He is a pool playing businessman who seems to have it figured out. I am sure he has received some very valuable advice from friends and family over his career to help steer him in the right financial direction. But ultimately, it was his time, his money and his game to control. He seems to be in a phenomenal spot. Kudos to him for sure.

Good post with a ring of truth in it for sure. Though Shane is a smart cookie and has invested his winnings wisely, the most enterprising pool player today, in my opinion, has to be Fedor Gorst. He has created a brand with apparel, pool paraphernalia, souvenirs, videos, personalized video snippets, photos, raffles, auctions. You name it, Fedor is doing it. I really admire this. He will, hopefully, be able to retire comfortably when his streak ends. We won't be seeing GoFundMe accounts for Fedor in the future. I think his business sense is brilliant.

Players like Shane and Fedor are in a different era of pool than in the '80s. They have more opportunities in professional competitions, and though both of them have engaged in challenge matches, to include with each other, the bulk of their earnings comes from sponsorships and tournament winnings. It's definitely a new breed of pool player today.

 

[ShootingArts]

I went on the road during that era with a true road warrior, mostly down South, and even found myself in a couple of action games. One in Greensboro, North Carolina stands out. The place was nothing but action, wall to wall tables, and it was there I saw something I’ll never forget: Seattle Sam Trivett crawling up on a table on all fours to make a shot. I laughed so hard I couldn’t control myself, had to run outside just to catch my breath.

The bars down South back then weren’t like today’s sports bars. Each one seemed to have dozens of tables, sometimes even a snooker table. My road partner preferred the quieter pool rooms, but he didn’t have Keith’s kind of personality, the knack for reading a room, getting someone to play, and keeping the mood light while the cheese was on the line. That part of the hustle was left to me, and I learned quick how to get action with the best player in town.

It wasn’t all wins, either. We were walking into rooms blind, sometimes forced to play with a bent metal house cue. You’d never bring your own cue in the joint because it would give you away. And when the house pro showed up, well, the game was on. We won more than we lost, but I knew the Western Union phone number by heart. More than once we had to call home for money because he—or we—had gone bust.

Some memories still stand sharp:

• Having a gun pulled on me in Dalton, Georgia. Legal or not, I’ll never forget it.
• Watching a man sob in the parking lot, rent money gone, and feeling no joy in that win.
• Falling in with a steer in Alabama whose whole family stole meat for a living, even the kids. It made me uneasy.
• Seeing a wild ring game of 9-ball on a snooker table at Baker’s in Tampa, FL, one of the oldest poolrooms.
• Meeting Grady Mathews, driving a sharp Cadillac with a pit bull puppy riding shotgun, who took us to dinner and picked up the tab.
• Beating a girl out of $100 with adrenaline in my veins, and it was pure fun.
• Partying with carnival folks in Florida, some of the kindest, most genuine people I ever met on the road.

Oddly enough, it was through this same road warrior that I crossed paths with Keith years later. He had gone out to California, and Keith was his steer. Keith told me later some of those road stories gave him the hardest laughs of his life, like Geese flying alongside a car on the highway and joking, “I’ll just masse around this one up ahead.” You had to be there, but Keith thought he was hilarious.

For me, those golden years on the road were full of excitement because I was so deeply into pool, but after seeing a man crying in the parking lot over lost rent money, the thrill of laying down lemons to steal a win began to fade.

Keith and Scotty were thick as thieves. I remember Keith once disappeared for a week with Scotty during an IPT event in Reno, leaving Pots and Pan in his hotel room. To this day I don’t know what they got into, and I probably don’t want to. Their friendship, though, was rock solid. When Scotty lost his other half, Keith called him right away, knew he was short on cash, and asked me to drive him to Western Union where he wired Scotty $500 to get through the hard stretch.

That’s the kind of bond players of that generation shared. Through all the laughs, busts, and long nights, they built friendships that lasted a lifetime.

Photo I took July 2006 in Las Vegas. They clean up nice, don't they?

View attachment 850218

 

[ShootingArts]

Accidental post above. They do indeed clean up nice!

My story is a lot like yours and Keith's. I have played Johnny Archer and others but Danny Medina was my toughest match. With me having home field advantage we were too even to call. With me having home field advantage on a bar table Danny was starting to edge me. It had been several years since that had happened and road players were starting to beat a path to my door. Danny was one of the ones that told me that the road players had started exchanging information and I was in "the book". I changed my playing style a bit and eventually busted Danny. Funny thing, it was far from mum pool. This was a young Danny and we laughed and talked from the third or fourth game.

First three games he pissed me off giving me games thinking he might have to suck me in. Once he realized I didn't give a damn who he was we would play equal, we started laughing and talking. We talked maybe an hour after he was broke, no air barrel from Danny to finish up either. He called his wife in Vegas, collect, his nightly check in he made most nights. Asked about the kids and such, no mention he was busted over a thousand miles from home. Danny wouldn't take a walking stick either. I had enough fun I would have given him damned near all his money back but all he wanted was a couple bucks for gas to get back to Greenway. Danny said any pool room owner in the world would back him! Confidence he didn't lack! We had started as strangers maybe six hours before, parted company as friends.

Another story: For a few years it had been my goal to bust everyone I played. Not just beat them and take a few bucks, take every penny plus anything they owned and would bet! Everyone I played of any level thought they were a gnat's ass away from beating me for the most part. Then one day a tall thin young man came in. We quickly got up to twenty a game, respectable in a bar at the time, and I was stripping his money. After an hour it was obvious he knew he was outclassed but he couldn't make himself quit. I took his last dollar and was pretty pleased with myself although he seemed like a nice guy.

I had come to value "customers" who would drop a hundred fifty or so with no whining so I walked out the door with him making a little casual talk. He stopped at the door to smoke a cigarette and I looked over at his car. A wife and baby, plus the wife was obviously pregnant again. It was cold outside and she had spent the last two hours sitting outside in that cold car with her baby. He stayed by the door hoping for a walking stick he hadn't asked for and I had been too distracted to offer although I would have often flipped a twenty back.

I wasn't too proud of myself when I gave her eighty dollars, a quick count of half I had won, and a little advice. I told her to put some back for the baby but I doubt she did. That session was the death of a damned good hustler. I tried to beat people after that, busted people sometimes, but it was never the main goal anymore. I was satisfied just to win.

Life on the road was hard. You sometimes used every trick in the book to survive. I got interested in the horses for awhile. Then I read a book by a successful horse player. One of his tips in the seventies was never go to a track where the breakage was a dime, stick to tracks where it was a nickel! Also never tip a penny to anyone! When I read a well known horse player scratching over nickels I lost interest in making a living playing the horses. Too I knew jockeys and trainers deep in the hole gambling on the ponies. If they couldn't win living at the track I didn't like my chances. I did quit winner, on one somewhat drunken bet but that is a story for another time!

Hu

 

[billb]

When you say "Barry Jones," do you mean Punky? Geese snuck in on Punky in Hagerstown a few times back in the early '80s. He was a well-known action player and could play on the big table and the bar box, and as most old-school players, Punky could play all games. He wasn't a one-trick pony.

Keith McCready did a charity event in Pennsylvania at an Elks Club, and the place was really cool with lots of pool peeps. They had auctions for money that was donated to a medical charity. We were sitting at the bar, and this gentleman initiates a conversation with Keith, stating that he wouldn't mind playing him some with a spot. I looked at the guy long and hard and realized it was Punky, who truly did not need as big a spot as he was asking for.

View attachment 850227

I know Punky. Barry and Punky are two different people. Barry, to the best of my knowledge, was nowhere near the player that Punky is/was. But Barry was a character. Always in high gear. Always making people laugh with off the wall comments or quotes.

I didnt have alot of interaction with Barry but when I did, he kept me laughing.

 

[billb]

Good post with a ring of truth in it for sure. Though Shane is a smart cookie and has invested his winnings wisely, the most enterprising pool player today, in my opinion, has to be Fedor Gorst. He has created a brand with apparel, pool paraphernalia, souvenirs, videos, personalized video snippets, photos, raffles, auctions. You name it, Fedor is doing it. I really admire this. He will, hopefully, be able to retire comfortably when his streak ends. We won't be seeing GoFundMe accounts for Fedor in the future. I think his business sense is brilliant.

Players like Shane and Fedor are in a different era of pool than in the '80s. They have more opportunities in professional competitions, and though both of them have engaged in challenge matches, to include with each other, the bulk of their earnings comes from sponsorships and tournament winnings. It's definitely a new breed of pool player today.

Agreed. Fedor is the best at branding himself now days. Along with nice chunk in prize money, he has sponsorships, clothing line, social media following, etc. Maybe appearance fees too. All of that adds up. I suspect that in 20 years, he may be set for a very, very comfortable level of retirement.