jay helfert said:
Sigel on the upper left and Tom Vanover on the lower left. Don't know the other guy. Geese could and did play several tournaments and usually finished near the top. He was a respected gambler and top notch One Pocket man. Another one who died young. Still in his 40's I would guess.
Geese was 53 when he passed. He smoked Lucky Strikes without the filters when he was a young'n, and when he found out he had cancer, the doctor told him he only had 30 days to live. It was an awful diagnosis for him to have to endure those last 30 days.
Yep, that's Sigel, "Cigar Tom" Vanover (who has a brother in Texas that plays strong as well), and the other gentleman is "Teddy Bear" Wilson who doesn't play pool too much these days. Every time I see Teddy Bear today, he's at the horse track, which is where I'm going today for the Derby.
Cigar Tom still engages in games of stake by appointment, and he still enjoys a strong following in Baltimore Dundalk area. Everybody bets on Cigar Tom for the money, rooting for the home team, and Cigar Tom can still deliver. He shoots with a shaft that is about the size of a pencil, and a lot of regulars in Dundalk have this same-sized shaft. Cigar Tom used to say this size shaft, he could execute his englishes better. Geese, on the other hand, shot with a 13-plus diameter shaft, larger than most.
Geese's best game was one pocket, and he also could shoot one-handed better than anyone I have seen. He could draw his rock the length of the table without his stick ever touching the table. Most one-handed players like to use the table for balance. Geese's favorite accomplishment in pool was coming in third place at a Johnston City tournament. His favorite line was, "I was third in the world when I was 19 years old."
He won the Maryland State Championship several years, alternating with Cigar Tom. Geese and Cigar Tom were probably the best local shooters in my area for many years.
Geese was happiest, though, when he was on the road. When he was winning, he was a joy to be around, but when he lost, nobody knew what was going to happen next. He was a very bad loser. He couldn't stand losing. The first time I ever saw Grady Mathews was at Baker's in Tampa, Florida. Geese just lost all his dough in a ring game on a snooker table. He walked outside and took his cue stick and threw it on the ground with all his might. Around the corner walks up Grady Mathews. Grady picked up Geese's cue calmly and handed it to Geese and said, "You ought not do that to your stick, Geese." Later that evening, Geese and Grady went out to dinner, and thankfully, things calmed down. Grady was driving around in a silver Cadillac with points and a pitbull puppy at the time.
One day at the horses, a friend of Geese's named "Drug Fair," who rode out there with Geese, won a race. When he came up to Geese to tell him about it, Drug Fair was enjoying an ice cream cone. Geese was stuck and not in a good mood. He took the ice cream cone out of Drug Fair's hands and smashed it on top of his head and then left the track and drove home, without Drug Fair. Poor Drug Fair had to find a ride back home from Charles Town, West Virginia, to Silver Spring, Maryland.
I guess if I had to come up with a funny line, to stay on topic of the thread, I can remember Geese used to always say, "Show me somebody who likes to lose, and I'll show you a loser."
JAM
Though he has said it since time immemorial, my fave one-liner is still Efren Reyes' "I just got lucky!"
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