Black Pool Players Matter

ShootingHank

ShootingHank

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
With what's going on in this world right now....I would like everyone to acknowledge the past legendary pool players. The likes of Mosconi are always talked about but here are some great Black players of the past.

Great article
https://theundefeated.com/features/...rphy-hustled-his-way-to-the-top-of-billiards/

Cisero Murphy; only ever Black champion.
cisero.jpg

Joseph “Strokey” Armstrong
030219-cisero-murphy-jr-31.jpg


James “Cornbread” Thomas
030219-cisero-murphy-jr-37.jpg
 
Some may have missed JAM's excellent thread on Cisero and other black players...

(edit) Just finished the linked article...very well done!
 
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Murphy must have played with a Balabushka- sure looks like one in his hands in the photo above.
 
ShootingHank said:
With what's going on in this world right now....I would like everyone to acknowledge the past legendary pool players. The likes of Mosconi are always talked about but here are some great Black players of the past.

Great article
https://theundefeated.com/features/...rphy-hustled-his-way-to-the-top-of-billiards/

Cisero Murphy; only ever Black champion.
cisero.jpg

Joseph “Strokey” Armstrong
030219-cisero-murphy-jr-31.jpg


James “Cornbread” Thomas
030219-cisero-murphy-jr-37.jpg
Click to expand...

Enjoyed the article and the embedded video on his "hesitation stroke"--which looks like the SPF stroke championed by Scott Lee, et al.
 
Best black pool player I ever played was when I was about 15 and when I was working in a pool hall.

Youngblood (from TX, I think) came through and was looking for a game.

Somehow we wound up on the big snooker table playing 9-ball with the regular sized balls from a pool table.

That was the first time I had ever tried that game and that is what he wanted to play.

We were playing for around $50 or $100 a game and he beat me out of something like $500.

He must have practiced this game a lot because he slammed some balls into those rounded pockets.
 
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I interpret the assertion that Cisero was the only champion as meaning the only world champion, which I believe is accurate.

Another fantastic player of color not yet given his due in this thread is Cliff Joyner, a legendary one-pocket player I always enjoyed watching.
 
I forgot the article or possibly in a book where the author describes the pool room as the great equalizer; no one cares about color, socioeconomic status, or clothes. Only how good you play pool.

Mark Tadd, my contribution to the thread.

Edit: I may have read it in Hustlers, Beats and Others by Ned Polsky
 
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