8 ball history

[GideonF]

I was reading some discussions under one of the “International 8b” referee videos and someone complained that the UK version of 8b was around first and the Americans messed it up. That sent me to Wikipedia which said the American version evolved in the early 1900s and that the English version came long after that.

I don’t trust Wikipedia necessarily on billiards history so I was curious if one of our resident historians can chime in. [mention]Bob Jewett [/mention] ?

 

[Bob Jewett]

When it comes to a lot of things in cue sports, your typical UKer is as stupid as a stump. Just look at the comments from Darren and Karl on the frozen ball shot that Pongers played.

Eight ball was originally promoted by BBCCo (Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company) as BBCCo Pocket Billiards about 1908. Here is their 1914 rule book -- see page 44 or so... It used reds and yellows, so the US was ahead of the UK for that, too. I think the main point was to sell special sets of balls, but customers were mostly too smart for them.

http://www.sfbilliards.com/Misc/rules_1914tpr.pdf

On the other hand, if you look at the Facebook pool groups, some USers are not far behind on stumpiness.

 

[garczar]

I was reading some discussions under one of the “International 8b” referee videos and someone complained that the UK version of 8b was around first and the Americans messed it up. That sent me to Wikipedia which said the American version evolved in the early 1900s and that the English version came long after that.

I don’t trust Wikipedia necessarily on billiards history so I was curious if one of our resident historians can chime in. [mention]Bob Jewett [/mention] ?

the tiny table-tiny ball limey version came a lot later. losing to US is just in their DNA.