I had the opportunity to play Grady for a couple of days last week, at his room in Lexington, SC. Grady, as always, is a gracious host.
The second day I was there a fellow came in and apologized to Grady for something that had happened the night before. I'm not sure, but I think it involved the breakage of a custom cue. Anywhos, all is forgiven and forgotten and we're having a good laugh and the fellow starts telling the story of another "incident," relating that in this case, a player who was shooting poorly got to the point of holding his $1000 custom at arms length and said to it, "One more, and that's it for you, Big Daddy."
Well, the line struck me as pretty funny and I just remembered it and was thinking about other memorable cue incidents. Ferinstance, I was told by the old timers around here that a pretty well known St. Louis player (not Louie) use to have a reputation for breaking sticks (as did a contemporary of his -- a much lesser known player). They said that in one month, the rail birds counted nine cue sticks broken by the better known player and ten by the other fellow. The final act in this 30 days of carnage was the lesser known fellow losing a set for a healthy wager, calmly leaving the pool hall, emptying out his rather large cue case on the sidewalk, carefully lining up five cues (with shafts) on the curbstone and driving over them as he left the pool hall, never to be seen again.
We also use to have in this area a well known, rather large (physically and figuratively) fish who liked to toss his pool cue around when defeat came his way. On one occasion, he threw his cue, javelin style, at a wall. A perfectly shaped cue-sized hole remains in the pool hall wall to this day. On another occasion, this player left the pool hall and, once again javelin style, threw his cue onto the pool hall roof and drove off to nurse his rage.
More recently, we had another fellow who owned a pretty expensive Meucci. He dogged a ball and stuck the butt of the cue into a corner pocket. His reputation for cue destruction was pretty well known, so several of the regulars yelled out, "Don't do it, I'll give you a hundred for the cue!" He just smiled at 'em and yanked sideways anyway, dismembering the cue.
I was in attendance the night this last fellow I mentioned took his frustrations out on another Meucci. To get the visual image on this one, you have to know that at this particular pool hall the bathrooms are in a small alcove a few feet away from the money table. This guy lost a set and calmly walked into the alcove towards the bathrooms. The next thing we knew there was the most incredible stream of epithets pouring out of the alcove, accompanied by the sounds of splintering wood from the Meucci being pounded against the floor. This went on for a fair period of time and, at one point, a part of the shaft came (dare I say it?) squirting out of the alcove, end-over-end at about 50 mph and almost impaled one of the regulars sitting against the wall. When it was over, the fellow came out, deposited the several pieces the cue was now in into a trash can, smiled at the regulars and said, "I feel much better now."
Thankfully, it's a lot calmer around here nowadays
Lou Figueroa
The second day I was there a fellow came in and apologized to Grady for something that had happened the night before. I'm not sure, but I think it involved the breakage of a custom cue. Anywhos, all is forgiven and forgotten and we're having a good laugh and the fellow starts telling the story of another "incident," relating that in this case, a player who was shooting poorly got to the point of holding his $1000 custom at arms length and said to it, "One more, and that's it for you, Big Daddy."
Well, the line struck me as pretty funny and I just remembered it and was thinking about other memorable cue incidents. Ferinstance, I was told by the old timers around here that a pretty well known St. Louis player (not Louie) use to have a reputation for breaking sticks (as did a contemporary of his -- a much lesser known player). They said that in one month, the rail birds counted nine cue sticks broken by the better known player and ten by the other fellow. The final act in this 30 days of carnage was the lesser known fellow losing a set for a healthy wager, calmly leaving the pool hall, emptying out his rather large cue case on the sidewalk, carefully lining up five cues (with shafts) on the curbstone and driving over them as he left the pool hall, never to be seen again.
We also use to have in this area a well known, rather large (physically and figuratively) fish who liked to toss his pool cue around when defeat came his way. On one occasion, he threw his cue, javelin style, at a wall. A perfectly shaped cue-sized hole remains in the pool hall wall to this day. On another occasion, this player left the pool hall and, once again javelin style, threw his cue onto the pool hall roof and drove off to nurse his rage.
More recently, we had another fellow who owned a pretty expensive Meucci. He dogged a ball and stuck the butt of the cue into a corner pocket. His reputation for cue destruction was pretty well known, so several of the regulars yelled out, "Don't do it, I'll give you a hundred for the cue!" He just smiled at 'em and yanked sideways anyway, dismembering the cue.
I was in attendance the night this last fellow I mentioned took his frustrations out on another Meucci. To get the visual image on this one, you have to know that at this particular pool hall the bathrooms are in a small alcove a few feet away from the money table. This guy lost a set and calmly walked into the alcove towards the bathrooms. The next thing we knew there was the most incredible stream of epithets pouring out of the alcove, accompanied by the sounds of splintering wood from the Meucci being pounded against the floor. This went on for a fair period of time and, at one point, a part of the shaft came (dare I say it?) squirting out of the alcove, end-over-end at about 50 mph and almost impaled one of the regulars sitting against the wall. When it was over, the fellow came out, deposited the several pieces the cue was now in into a trash can, smiled at the regulars and said, "I feel much better now."
Thankfully, it's a lot calmer around here nowadays
Lou Figueroa
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