Danny D's cue(s).......??

Most of the videos I've seen of him playing he has a Meucci, but most of the videos came around the late 80's which is a tiny fragment of his career. I think all the matches on the "Danny Diliberto, Legend of Pool" DVD and the the Ronnie Allen challenge match he has a Meucci. There's an Accu-Stats match he does commentary on from that era where he says he could do things at distance with a Meucci he hadn't been able to do with other cues. Meucci had a lot of sponsorship dollars floating around then, so I wouldn't blame someone for thinking that influenced his opinion. I think he mentions using both Balabushka and Szamboti in his book and playing with a Bloodworth in a 90's commentary. He played so long there had to be a lot of different cues.
 
Back in the mid 70's , had moved 30 miles to the big city of Martinsville Va. Met a Gent who would later be one of my great friends.
Reid Young, attorney there in the area and about 4 or 5 years older. He had a little brother Kent , who had just passed away
and by my understanding was close to Danny D. Reid had a cue that belonged to his brother, a real nice Balabushka. Supposedly
the cue belonged at one time to Marcell Camp. Had 4 shafts and hit real well. Danny D was the one that helped Kent
obtain the cue. Always wanted to get pics and have the cue authenticated . Reid died about a month ago, Marine Corp and served in Nam
was a sniper out in the field,,tough as they came. Started reading about cues Danny might have had, and just kept thinking.
 
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Chip Roberson said:
Back in the mid 70's , had moved 30 miles to the big city of Martinsville Va. Met a Gent who would later be one of my great friends.
Reid Young, attorney there in the area and about 4 or 5 years older. He had a little brother Kent , who had just passed away
and by my understanding was close to Danny D. Reid had a cue that belonged to his brother, a real nice Balabushka. Supposedly
the cue belonged at one time to Marcell Camp. Had 4 shafts and hit real well. Danny D was the one that helped Kent
obtain the cue. Always wanted to get pics and have the cue authenticated . Reid died about a month ago, Marine corp and served in Nam
was a sniper out in the field,,tough as they came. Started reading about cues Danny might have had, and just kept thinking.
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sorry for the loss of your friend
and i thank him for his service
condolences to his loved ones
marcel camp should be in the onepocket hall of fame IMO
 
garczar said:
DiLiberto's passing got me curious as to what cue he liked. did he stick with one for years or did flip brands a lot. I tried searching this and found one mention of him using a Szam for a while. Thanks for any input.
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Years ago Danny's favorite cue was a Gina cue. He and Ernie were good friends and Danny even sold his cues in the beginning when Ernie was just starting out. I ordered a Gina cue through Danny. The Szamboti somebody mentioned has kind of a funny story with it. Danny used to play with a fat shaft like a 13 1/4 to 13 1/2. Then he all of a sudden decided to go to a thinner shaft.

He's in my pool room and I had a lathe and Danny started sanding away at his shafts on a Szamboti that he had. Danny went from playing with like a 13 1/2 down to like a 12 1/2. This is an exact quote. Danny said that all the years he's been playing with the fat shaft going down to the thinner shaft was the first improvement he's seen in his game in years. Anyway he was playing in a tournament somewhere up north and Gus was in the audience. He sees the cue with the horribly sanded shafts and approaches Danny and says I'll tell you what, how about about I make you a new cue and he did.
Needless to say Danny didn't have the cue very long. He comes in the pool room and asked if he can get a couple of hundred on the cue to go to the track. I give him 200 and a couple of days later he says how about you just buy the cue, so I gave him I think like 300 more which most certainly he went and blew at the dog track the same night. I knew Danny for like 60 years I never knew him to have any money. A good portion of that time he always owed me money.
Danny's life was not anything glamorous or picturesque or even to be envied. But here's the interesting thing, Danny got the rare opportunity for a second act. This was with Accu stats the commentary, the Hall of Fame and all the recognition that he got later in life he always craved when he was younger. I think that's the best part of the Danny Diliberto story. I would say Danny lived a good long life and probably died essentially a happy man.
 
back when he was in new york he had a balabuska. probably took it to florida.

in a few later years all the top well known players got sponsors of a sort and used their free equipment.
 
Interesting story told to me by Jazz, our local cue mechanic here in the Phoenix area.

Jazz ran the cue shop in the Golden Cue here, where I believe Danny was the house pro
for a while. He made cues which were named "jazzy" cues (sorry Jazz if I got the name a
little wrong).... anyway they were sneaky's.... and Jazz told me he would get calls from all
these different parts of the country wanting to order one of his sneaky's, and that's how
he knew where Danny was 'on the road'.

td

p.s. Jazz is still working the cues at Metro Sports here in Phx. for anyone looking.
 
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