hondo said:
Good list, Fl. But a question. The old timers told me
Hoppe was a great pocket player but his true greatness
was in 3 cushion billiards. The real old guys say nobody
was ever better in pocket billiards than Greenleaf & guys
my age swear by Mosconi. Comments? Also, I'm glad
you included Irving Crane. I used to love to watch that
guy play.
hondo said:
Good list, Fl. But a question. The old timers told me
Hoppe was a great pocket player but his true greatness
was in 3 cushion billiards. The real old guys say nobody
was ever better in pocket billiards than Greenleaf & guys
my age swear by Mosconi. Comments? Also, I'm glad
you included Irving Crane. I used to love to watch that
guy play.
FL RESPONDS, ALLOW ME TO ANSWER BACKWARDS:
The real old guys say nobody
was ever better in pocket billiards than Greenleaf & guys
my age swear by Mosconi. Comments
FL: Who’s older than me, I am older than dirt dude. I pick Greenleaf. He taught Mosconi. In Ralph’s era, you ran 75 that was the bar. Willie came along and ran 100, he moved the bar up. Willie did make higher runs that Ralph and at the end their records were really close, so the edge there goes to Willie. When I ignore all that and study each player in his era, which he was, what he was, Ralph gives Willie the 7 and the snap. He was a much bigger star, and really loved by the fans and Willie was not.
Hoppe was a great pocket player but his true greatness
Was in 3 cushion billiards.
FL RESPONDS;
It was just the opposite, his greatness and almost all of his records were in Straight rail billiards. His first great victory in 1906 was in 18.1 balkline, for the world title in Paris, a purse of $1000, probably 50 grand in today’s money, a diamond trophy, said today to be priceless if ever located and sold. That trophy would be worth millions. Fortunes were bet on the side. Most of Hoppe's world titles were in 18.1 balkline, his great world titles were in 1906-07 1908-11 1914-41, at 18.2 balkline world titles in 1907, 1910-20 l923-=24, high run 622. 14.1 balkline world champion 1914-41, at 71.2 balkline world champion 1938-41. Cushion caroms world champion 1933-42.
Three cushions world champion 1936, 40, 41, high run 25.
Tournament victory streak 38 out of 39 in 1936, 40 and 41.
I am only listing Hoppe’s wins from 1906 to 194l, I don’t have time to look up the rest of them, he did continue to play for another 15 years after that. Even when you add up where he was in 41, the total becomes simply mind boggling.
He dominated more in balkline than in 3-cushion, but as you can see he was a great champion in both games.
Two guys came along called Cochran and Jake Schaefer Jr. Both began beating Willie at balkline and Jake began to dominate him. Jake was now clearly superior to Willie. To prevent that from happening, Brunswick wanting to retain their greatest star at the top and running and controlling pool and its organizations just killed off Balkline and Schaefer with that. They moved the game into 3-cushion and that allowed Willie new life and he retained on top well into the 1950’s. The man totally dominated not one decade, but almost 5 decades on top.
QUOTE=hondo]Good list, Fl. But a question. The old timers told me
Hoppe was a great pocket player
Fl responds, listen to this old timer, he knows.
Willies father was a barber and in the early l890’s he rented the ground floor of a little brick hotel in Cornwall landing 53 miles north of NYC on he west bank of the Hudson. By horse into NYC they were really in the boonies. When the train came in for a stop, the hack drivers and drummers would gather at Hoppe’s place to get a hair cut or just hang out. They could also play pool, a new game that had just came on the scene, and it had pockets. Willie began to play pool at age 5, his grandfather Hoffman made him a stool to climb up on. He would crawl up on the table and go bell-whopper to reach some shots.
Hoppe was always short and was never much more than 5’ 2” tall. As a kid he was really little and this caused his side saddle stroke where he had to make his forearm and wrist do most of the work. This later gave him more twist or English on the ball ands allowed him to have a more delicate touch than the pendulum players. Willie began to play the hack drivers and the passing by traveling salesmen. He played them for money. By the time he was 8 yrs old he had conquered the adult champions of Newburg and Poughkeepsie. Willie played you for a dime a game which was probably 5 bucks in today’s cash. Soon Willie was making more money hustling pool than the old man was making cutting hair in the two barber chairs.
When Willie was 7 and his brother Frank was 9, playing as a team against all comers, they were now earning their families living with their cues. In the spring of 1895 Willies father had some hand bills printed up which said Hoppe Brothers The Boy Billiardists, they hit the road. Willie said we fared forth to astonish the world and one of the brothers indeed did do exactly that. They toured the state but just barely made expenses. Maurice Daly the former billiard champion and owner of the two greatest rooms in the country in Brooklyn booked them in for exhibitions. They finally hit the big leagues.
Daly said of Willie, you have the makings of a fine billiard player if you’ll study the game and practice. He felt the older brother Frank was the better pool player and played that game impulsively and was the better shot maker of the two. He felt Willie lacked the feel for the pocket game. Daly said I’ll make a carom player out of him. Pool was the minor game them, caroms was the main game and to have the greatest teacher of his day take you under his wing for instruction was a dream come true.
When they got home his father went out and bought 4 ivory billiard balls. The tables of that time could all be converted from a pool table to a billiard table by inserting blocks into the pockets. The pool tables were ten footers any way. At the age of 8 years and 2 months, Willie Hoppe potted his last pool ball. From that point on in his life all he played was Billiards. His pool career had lasted 3 years. When Willie was 9 his father sold the barber shop and took the boys out on a world wide tour. The die was cast; they had to win with their cues to eat. Not every where they went could they find a booking or an exhibition. Franks game did not advance and he soon realized he would never be the star at pool Willie was becoming a billiards. In a few years Frank packed it in and quit the tour.
The two kids never went to school and if you did that to kids today, take them out as roadies hanging out in smoke filled pool halls gambling with drunks, they would put you in jail forever. Back then things were quite different. In Chicago in 1897 and 98 Willie was taken under the wing of the young napoleon, Frank Ives, the greatest player of his day. Ives soon drank himself to death at 33. If he had not done that, Ives would have become Hoppe and Willie would have been a 2nd place runner up all the time. When Willie was 11 he was back in NYC under the instruction of Daly once more. In 1901 Willie turned pro and did well in his first big event. They gave him the name, the Boy Wonder.
Daly would book the French stars that came over into matches with the boy. In October 1902, Willie was booked into Paris by Jake Schaefer, the greatest player of his time. He now obtained his final finishing instructions from the grand master of grand masters, the wizard himself. He became a daily money match player in the Olympia Academy. Nobody had ever been better prepared and schooled to become what Hoppe finally did become, the greatest cueist of time.
January 15, 1906, Hoppe wins the world title and the super star is born. It all happened because he gave up that new fangled game called pool and learned the real game of the people of that time, balkline billiards.
If you would like to read the story of Willies great world victory, it is a marvelous one, but it’s long, 7 pages so be for warned about that. I will post it right after this sign off.
