A BIG Thank You

S

SteveMizerak

Registered
To all:

I know this is about 6 months late at this point but here goes anyway.

A big thank you to A-Z Billiards.com for putting up this bulletin board and a big thank you to all of you who have shared so much here about your memories of my father and his life.

I have joined the message board with the intent to learn a bit more from everyone about his life and maybe to share a few stories of my own.

Any other good stories out there?

Steve
 
You're welcome.

I was hoping that maybe you'd share something with us that we may be unfamilliar with.

Thanks,
Dave
 
Random Thoughts

Dave,

Some random things that come to mind:

Something people may not know is he never taught his children anything about pool. I never played pool with him, ever. I'd play, he'd be nearby but we never actually played a game. No pointers, ever. I think he felt our lives would be better being away from the game, for whatever reason.

Something people may also not be aware of is his father Steve Sr. was a minor league baseball player/manager in the late 20's, 30's and early 40's. When baseball season was out, all the baseball players played pool. After his baseball career was over was when he opened his pool room in Perth Amboy, NJ. My father had always been around the pool room (picking up his first stick at age 4) but my grandfather always encouraged my father to play baseball as well and I would say baseball was my grandfather's first love, more so than pool. The night he announced his engagement to his wife Sonya, he went out and hit three HR's in the game the same night (I have the newspaper clipping. He would ask me what position I would like to play as a kid in Little League. I told him Second Base. I must have been 8 or 9 years old. He told me, "You can't play second base, you're a lefty-you won't be able to throw to first base fast enough"). I forget the story but something happened while playing baseball, I think it was a line drive he hit that knocked out the pitcher, that turned my father off from playing baseball and put him full time into pool. My grandfather was insturemental in the development of his game.

Had it not been for a game of pool, it's possible he may never have been a father. His first wife, Linda (my mother) is the sister of another tremendous pool player, Pete Margo. They were buddies back in the day. I always tell people that if it were not for a game of pool I probably would not be here today. My brother, ironically enough, recently married and met his wife over a game of pool (of all things) as well! Apparently it must be in the genes!

Thanks for asking Dave. Don't know if this is the kind of stuff you might be interested in. I'm sure I can come up with more in time....

Steve

P.S. If anyone has anything they'd like to ask, please don't be shy.
 
I didn't know he played baseball. Any idea what Minor league team he played for?

Edit - I just found that he played for the Rochester Red Wings with Red Schoendienst and Walter Alston. Wow!!

Jim
 
Last edited:
Jim,

I believe this is the info you discovered on the web...in case anyone is interested:

Al "Red" Schoendienst played for the New York Giants in the 1950s.
I came across a couple of interesting little stories I wanted to share with forum readers.

"While playing minor league ball with the Rochester Cardinals in 1943, he was teammates with Walter Alston and Steve Mizerak, the pool shark. Mizerak would go into pool halls wherever they were playing, smoking a big cigar, and look like he was just some lost, poor soul.
He'd hang around and watch for a while, and pretty soon someone would ask him to get in a game. They would wager a quarter or a half-dollar or something, then he would run the table and take their money."

Red and Alston played for Steve Sr....he was the manager. Legend goes that my grandfather got into a brawl one night, was fined and suspended I believe (I still have the letter from the league-it was a $100 fine! What would it have been today I can only imagine) and the scouts never looked at him the same again.

Thanks
Steve
 
Jim

He played for many of the teams in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Erie PA, Richmond VA and even Quebec Canada. When he decided to hang it up it was in the middle of a game, he went in the dugout, changed into street clothes and sat in the stands for the rest of the game.

Thanks
Steve
 
SteveMizerak said:
Jim

He played for many of the teams in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Erie PA, Richmond VA and even Quebec Canada. When he decided to hang it up it was in the middle of a game, he went in the dugout, changed into street clothes and sat in the stands for the rest of the game.

Thanks
Steve
Click to expand...


Sounds like a pool player :D :D !

Jim
 
SteveMizerak said:
Jim,

I believe this is the info you discovered on the web...in case anyone is interested:

Al "Red" Schoendienst played for the New York Giants in the 1950s.
I came across a couple of interesting little stories I wanted to share with forum readers.

"While playing minor league ball with the Rochester Cardinals in 1943, he was teammates with Walter Alston and Steve Mizerak, the pool shark. Mizerak would go into pool halls wherever they were playing, smoking a big cigar, and look like he was just some lost, poor soul.
He'd hang around and watch for a while, and pretty soon someone would ask him to get in a game. They would wager a quarter or a half-dollar or something, then he would run the table and take their money."

Red and Alston played for Steve Sr....he was the manager. Legend goes that my grandfather got into a brawl one night, was fined and suspended I believe (I still have the letter from the league-it was a $100 fine! What would it have been today I can only imagine) and the scouts never looked at him the same again.

Thanks
Steve
Click to expand...

Steve, I also found this on the Rochester site:

http://www.redwingsbaseball.com/history/hitregister.html#M

Looks like he played for them from '43-'45.


Your Dad played with two future Hall of Famers, simply amazing! To go along with being a Hall of Fame pool player in his own right.

Jim
 
Steve Mizerak Sr. Cue

Steve,
I've manage to get some pictures of your grandfather's cue. I don't know who made it. I asked dennis Searing and thought it was Made by Frank Costa. Sincerly Kevin
 

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I had the pleasure of being the referee on one of Steve's matches at the New England Straight Pool Championships in New London when he ran a perfect 150 and out against Pete Margo. I can't recall the year but it was late 70's or early 80's. He was awsome and I still remember the way he would raise his eyebrows just before executing a shot. After the tournament he endorsed me to work the World Championships at he Rosevelt Hotel and Cy sighned me up in NY that year. My wife and I both had a blast.

After leaving the tournament that night I was driving home when Steve passed me in his car holding the winners check out the window waving it at Pete who was following right behind. I guess there was'nt any love lost between those two competitors and if memory serves me I believe Steve came out of the loser bracket and had to beat Pete twice to win.

He was a gentlemen and one heck of a player.
 
Great Story

[After leaving the tournament that night I was driving home when Steve passed me in his car holding the winners check out the window waving it at Pete who was following right behind. I guess there was'nt any love lost between those two competitors and if memory serves me I believe Steve came out of the loser bracket and had to beat Pete twice to win.

QUOTE]

Mike,

Thanks for sharing. I love to hear the stories about both my father and uncle. Those days were long ago.....I never hear enough about them. They were best of friends for so long and things deteriorated when I was a child...a shame!

It still blows me away to think if they never played pool together I'd probably never existed!

Thanks
Steve
 
Kevin,

A legendary cue stick indeed. I think I might have some pictures from the old pool room in Metuchen with him with that cue.

Thanks
Steve
 
Cues

I would imagine your father must have had a very large cue collection. Is this collection still intact and do you have many of his old cues? Any guess on how many cues he owned at one time?
 
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