A quote for cueists to ponder
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boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
Sounds like he could have been great(er) than he was if he took some personal responsibility. Well, that and pool balls don't move unlike a baseball.
It's a fun quote but I see it weakening one's game if they can't build up mental strength to admit they f###ed up and learn to fix the problem for good.
I get a real chuckle out of pool player excuses, someone should write a comedy book about them. My favorite is to blame the humidity, this gets everyone who over analyzes into over analyzing mode. Or if they make an excuse just agree with them. "Yeah I noticed the table rolled off too, glad you noticed I thought I was imagining things!"
Berra had a wonderful wit.
IMO, pick one and get used to it.
I’ve told this to a couple of guys recently who were showing up with a different setup every time we played. One guy was actually repeatedly changing cues and shafts mid session (including switching between wood and CF shafts). We’d get down to the last few balls and he’d look lost in the woods and against my better judgement I told him what I thought the root of his problem (and repeated losses) was.
Lou Figueroa
pick one
any one
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I beat a guy once playing a race to whatever it was 9 ball and he said the reason I beat him was that the electrical wires in the ceiling were causing his shots to roll off.
I said I'm playing under the same wires now pay me.
I said I'm playing under the same wires now pay me.
I talk to the balls and they don't listen.
I sing to my cue but it don't care.
I sing to my cue but it don't care.
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
Something about poor workman and blaming tools...
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
Can be quite ignorant considering the tender love and care bestowed upon it... much like my ex
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
I can think of one or two snooker players who get a lot of talk because they have changed every couple of years or so... Can think of hundreds who are using the same cue, or cue made to the same spec as one they learned the game with...
Ken Doherty still using the same 5gbp cue he bought as a child...
One of the things that stresses me out about pool the most, is the sheer nonsense of branded 'technology' that means absolutely fuck all... there's always a new this, an LD that, Bala Bala Bala...
Money doesn't make you play better (besides the psychological placebo afforded to people who don't know any better). Practice does...
*Side note - the artistic beauty of a cue, will see me looking to buy a couple (the same way I collect and refurb vintage pens) - I will acknowledge the differences in hit, feel etc. But there is no substitute for picking something, working with it. No cue is going to magically make you play better pool.
I wish it was that easy.
I think he knew something of personal responsibility after the Normandy landings. I didn’t know a lot about him until I saw the excellent documentary on him. Also didn’t know he didn’t fill out the paperwork for a Purple Heart because he didn’t want his mother to be notified and worry. I speculate it might be because he had to have seen so much worse than his wound. He was a great player and I think your shot is unwarranted. I didn’t check how many games he caught on average per season. August double headers, World Series after a full season etc…. Now I don’t think you meant it personally as to him, but I think the quote illustrates a psychological trait many greats have , even if it sounds delusional. Also, I think sometimes the humor of his quotes can lead to underestimating him.
Anyway, great shooters in basketball want the ball even on a bad night. They figure they are due to hit. Nicklaus claimed he never missed a short putt or something to that effect. Of course he was smart enough to know he had. But he was confident enough to forget or focus or expect to make them all - whatever. So I tend to think this Berra quote was a product of an excellent mental game. Slumps in baseball are inevitable. That was a way he maintained a positive routine and showed he had underlying confidence in his ability and technique. He expected to hit and his expectation was based on experience and reality not false hope.
I agree that a lesser player switching cues as a crutch isn’t good. I just don’t think that was what Berra was really doing.
Once you establish a sound PSR, can pocket most shots confidently, have good Cue ball control , sound mechanics, then most misses occur because of some aspect of your inner self that takes away from your ability to put all of this stuff together on each and every shot.
That is what pros talk about when they say the game is played between your ears or above your shoulders.
Real progress at this level is all about being honest with yourself and admitting your human frailties and then setting about to find ways to fix it so that you don’t cave to situations but instead hold up under pressure.
Yogi knew this and his statement was just a parody on what really matters in the batters box. He was actually one of the originators of the term “ the game is played between the ears” - it is what is in your head that really matters once you develop the skills.
That is what pros talk about when they say the game is played between your ears or above your shoulders.
Real progress at this level is all about being honest with yourself and admitting your human frailties and then setting about to find ways to fix it so that you don’t cave to situations but instead hold up under pressure.
Yogi knew this and his statement was just a parody on what really matters in the batters box. He was actually one of the originators of the term “ the game is played between the ears” - it is what is in your head that really matters once you develop the skills.
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WobblyStroke
Well-known member
Kinda like Earl having a ball rack full of cue balls by his table at home. When he hits a bad shot or two, he blames the cueball for acting funny and swaps it out for a different one. One of the more entertaining parts of his YouTube videos...especially cuz that cueball that was acting funny just goes back in the rack with the rest of his cueball collection to be pulled out and used when another cueball fails to behave just as he imagines it should.
Homer gets it.
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wacokid9ball
Member
Yogi was facing fastballs coming at him at 90 MPH. pool has no such thing.
Perhaps it's an age thing here...the young no longer remembering Yogi? Now famed for his "Yogi quotes"...a very quick wit. With this one, he was being funny and sarcastic. After all, they don't hire dummies to manage big league teams. He was one of my childhood heroes... I'll turn 80 next month, God willing.
My favorite 'Yogi-ism' was attributed to him while watching a Humphrey Bogart movie with Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin some time after Bogart's death-- 'they must've filmed this before he died'.
boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
It was tongue in cheek. Dry humor doesn't always translate over plain text on the internet. Obviously he was one of the greats.