Fat's One Liners

Fatty, "Like putting ice cream on a hot dog".
Talking about Omaha wearing a suit and tie.

Mosconi, "Did you see that ball roll?"
Fatty, "Of course it rolled Willie. It's round!"

Now I was no where near the worlds greatest, but, around 1971 at Johnston City, I played some one handed $5 9 ball with Omaha and after an hour and a half we were dead even. Later we played some 2 handed
for a deuce a game (his choice) and I relieved him of all of $4. In those days the time on the tables in the "back room" was $10 an hour!!!

As I recall, Fatty beat Richie out of 20k over a period of almost 3 weeks.
 
Fats talking about some of the places he played at.
" The jernt (joint) was so unbeeeeeelievable that you needed a gas mask and a flit gun just to get in the front door."
 
Island Drive said:
It was at Johnson City, late 60's Souther IL, lots of hippie farmers in the area, this hippie chick wanted Fats autograph, he wipped out his signature stamp and stamped I guess the program don't really remember, but what I do remember is her response "if I wanted a signature like that I would of gone to the bank" amazingly, Fat's had no response.
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I stood in line for an hour to get his autograph one time and then when I got up there close I saw that he was charging 5$ and using the stamp so I said the heck with this and go out of line.Now I wish I would have spent the 5 bucks.He had a tall blond on each side of him:).This was in nashville.
John B.
 
huckster said:
Not to hijack the fats thread, but since I am enjoying the stories so much I will retell one about my grandfathers Don Willis. Little is known that Don was a very accomplished poker player aside from being maybe the best nineballer of his generation and a great sraight pool player. during his road days my grandfather was home for the holidays when Don got a call from a well known retired St. Louis Cardinals pitcher. He was stuck over 30 dimes playing poker and he wanted Don to come help him out. Grandpa left for Vegas that night. Grandpa played on their friends roll. About five days in they had won about 25k when they were playing seven card with a Texan from Amarillo who talked about playing onepocket. My grandfather's intrest piped up and he asked if the stranger wanted to play straight pool. The stranger said he would play one pocket for 200 dollars a ball (My grandfather told me back then a lot of onepocket games was the first on to 25 balls?) They went to one of the locals house and my grandfather won two games by a relative slim margin and won about 1000 dollars. The texan told them if they wanted a straight pool game they could come back tomorrow with a player and "bet what they could carry" Don told the texan he would play and he could carry a lot. The next day they showed up and the game was made straights to 500 for 20k. Don proceeded to win by over 200 balls running 176 and out after the texan told them they would never get a pool game with him again. That his how my grandfather beat Amarillo Slim for the chedder and got Dizzy Dean back in black.
I miss they stories from Grandpa

Huck
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Wow!!! One of your grandfather's was Harold Worst and the other one was Don Willis? How cool is that?: :eek:

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?p=3639596#post3639596
post #7
"People forget that Wimpy held the title of most feared 9ball player for about 25yrs. A lot of people seen him play in the early 70s when he was on the decline his best pool was pre Johnston City from the time my grandfather hooked up with him in Norfolk till they parted ways (Wimpy set up base with my grandfather for about 10 years in Canton) Mr. Lassiter was unbeatable. He was defintly the most feared 9ball player of his era only one person ever from around 1948-1970 sought out an even 9ball game with Wimpy pretty solid reign"

post #10
Quote:
Originally Posted by thommy
I probably should know but, who was that player?
thanx,
thom

"Harold Worst"
 
risky biz said:
Wow!!! One of your grandfather's was Harold Worst and the other one was Don Willis? How cool is that?: :eek:

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?p=3639596#post3639596
post #7
"People forget that Wimpy held the title of most feared 9ball player for about 25yrs. A lot of people seen him play in the early 70s when he was on the decline his best pool was pre Johnston City from the time my grandfather hooked up with him in Norfolk till they parted ways (Wimpy set up base with my grandfather for about 10 years in Canton) Mr. Lassiter was unbeatable. He was defintly the most feared 9ball player of his era only one person ever from around 1948-1970 sought out an even 9ball game with Wimpy pretty solid reign"

post #10
Quote:
Originally Posted by thommy
I probably should know but, who was that player?
thanx,
thom

"Harold Worst"
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I hear reading comperhension is hard :rolleyes: he asked who the player was that wanted to play Lassiter
 
OldHasBeen said:
I was just at the poolroom and Vernon was there. He is the fellow that was on the road with Fatty and has his Rambo.
He told me about Fatty beating Richie Florence out of $40K getting 9 to 7. It took him almost 20 min to tell as he is almost as good a story teller as Fats was. He must have told me 10 other stories about Fatty, Long Beach & a fellow called The Ufalla Kid. Said Ronnie couldn't give this guy a ball at his peek. Also had many stories about Squirrel and Fats.
There were quite a few players back then who would come here to trap a local fellow named "Sut". I knew him well and will never forget a story about him. I was about 17 years old and watching all the smarts playing poker at Suts office. I'm sitting in an old broken arm chair with about 75¢ in my pocket and Sut comes over to me and ask me to get up. He raises the cushion and there must have been $250,000 in cash right there. I couldn't sleep for a week.

TY & GL
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If my memory isn't wrong "The Eufala Kid" was Glen Womack
 
huckster said:
I hear reading comperhension is hard :rolleyes: he asked who the player was that wanted to play Lassiter
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No, reading comprehension is quite simple. Comprehensible expression of information doesn't, however, very often attain it's highest form here, especially when expressed in run-on sentences. He asked, "who was that player" which could refer to either your grandfather or that "one person".

huckster said:
(Wimpy set up base with my grandfatherfor about 10 years in Canton) Mr. Lassiter was unbeatable. He was defintly the most feared 9ball player of his era only one person ever from around 1948-1970 sought out an even 9ball game with Wimpy pretty solid reign
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thommy
I probably should know but, who was that player?
thanx,
thom

huckster said:
Harold Worst
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And- there's no need to be defensive and resentful and dispense kneejerk disparaging comments.
 
Fatty

I don't recall where it was but, remember Fats tell a story about traveling to Alaska to play the Eskamo tribal leader. "It was so cold we had to shovel off a patch of ice and roll up yack dung for pool balls. I bear em all and still have a couple of seal skins and a canoe from that trip"

I asked him for an autograph once and he took out a rubber stamp and stamped his photo.... what a trip he was.
 
MikeMaaen said:
I don't recall where it was but, remember Fats tell a story about traveling to Alaska to play the Eskamo tribal leader. "It was so cold we had to shovel off a patch of ice and roll up yack dung for pool balls. I bear em all and still have a couple of seal skins and a canoe from that trip"

I asked him for an autograph once and he took out a rubber stamp and stamped his photo.... what a trip he was.
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Yeah, your Eskimo got me rollin' LOL and I can just see em now. He was always adept at using interesting words, like tribal leader etc. Like Rodney Dangerfield, by the time the third word was out his mouth you were either dropping you jaw or laughing your ass off.
Tip from Evelyn;
Fatty kept his new cuetips in his pockets for months before use, along with his Cash, it utilized his body oils & sweat in cureing the leather.
 
macguy said:
I have a story of Fats the first time I saw him. It was in the early 60's and he was doing an exhibition at a department store. I was only like 14 or 15 at the time, but one of my friends had a drivers license and we went to see the exhibition. It was pretty good but in the middle of it Fats was doing bank shots. It was really funny, he took a bunch of balls and began banking them cross corner hardly aiming at them as he talked continuously. Well he only made one or two out of the 6 or 8 he shot, but he then says without missing a beat in his W.C. Fields voice, "Now the fat man is going to bank them one handed" (He hardly made any two handed) He missed all of them one handed but it didn't faze him a bit and he just kept going. It was strange and funny. Then he was knocking almost every player you could think of, no one can play, Crane, Lassiter, Mosconi, none of them can play they won't bet two big dogs can beat a little dog or fatty meats greasy you know, all the stuff he used to say.

I don't really know why but I said to him my "friend Danny DiLiberto will play you for what ever you want and we can go there right now". Remember I'm just a kid but he comes over to me and gets like a foot away and he was a big man, and starts yelling in my face. He says "Danny DiLiberto, Danny DiLiberto, who has he ever beat. Florida state champion, who did he beat, a seminole Indian and an alligator." He then say, " I just saw him on my way down here, I passed him in my Cadillac as he was at a gas station putting air in his sneakers". I don't know what that meant but everybody was laughing like crazy and that was the end of our conversation. But when the show was over I was still standing there and he says "Hay kid come here". I think he is going to apologize or say something like it's all a show don't worry about it, you know something nice. Instead he gets in my face again and says, "All those champions, they make me sick" and he walks away with his entourage. I'm standing there is shock. Years later though I had a good experience with him. He made a donation to a charity event I was putting on, he just sent me a big check not looking for any recognition at all, he really was I guess a nice guy.
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Great story and fits what I've seen of Fats. When I was young, in the 60s and 70s, he was probably the most famous pool player around. So I assumed he was a great player and a good example. It wasn't until last year that I watched the Fats vs. Mosconi match hosted by Howard Cosell and then the few other pieces of video I could find with Fats. What an eye opener. His boorish style was a little over the top for me, and he wasn't shooting well either. He looked to be in his 60s in this video and Mosconi looked even older. Mosconi could still shoot though. I heard Fats had had a heart attack by that time, so that may be why he wasn't that great anymore. Sadly, I could never find any video of Fats in his prime. Fats could still talk sh*t though, and wouldn't shut up the whole time. Trying to be entertaining I guess, but just seemed kind of obnoxious to me. He made several comments about his Cadillac and how he could beat such and such "for the cheese" in those rants as well. Hopping out of his chair and talking loudly to the audience every time Willie was getting ready to shoot. Cosell had to step out of the box to get him to settle down. I think Fats would have told anyone else to shove it up their a**, but Cosell was a strong character in his own right and handled Fats beautifully. Classic video there. Do a youtube or google search on minnesota fats vs willie mosconi.

Also, my parents picked up the Minnesota Fats pool book for 10 cents at a yard sale for me a long time ago. The book sucks. Thank god we also had Byrne's book of Pool or I may have given up on the game entirely.
 
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There was time when....

Fatty was so strong, that when ya beat em in a Public setting, he'd sell ya one of his ''I beat Minnesota Fats''tee shirts for $10 in the 60's....that's stronger than dirt. He's gettin' like four to one on his money and ''everybodys'' happy.
 
Island Drive said:
I always loved his body language. When I talk to others about his moments in my life I compare him to the actions/ways of Rodney Dangerfield or Johnathan Winters. These type of characters are such a product of who they are and their enviornment they become something very special. Fatty would jerk his neck, and his belly would go up and down when he was jokin' and interactin with the crowd, and that smirk on his face/special.
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Exactly. I've always thought it wasn't a coincidence when Gleason developed similar physical traits, like the neck tic, in his portrayal of Fats in The Hustler. Both were New Yorkers. They probably knew each other in the old days, even before the book.

Fats gave me my start in pool when he intentionally missed a dead bank to let me win a challenge match during one of his exhibitions. He saw that I was up against it in those days as a woman in a man's world and he cut me a break. I'll always remember him for that.
 
FranCrimi said:
Exactly. I've always thought it wasn't a coincidence when Gleason developed similar physical traits, like the neck tic, in his portrayal of Fats in The Hustler. Both were New Yorkers. They probably knew each other in the old days, even before the book.

Fats gave me my start in pool when he intentionally missed a dead bank to let me win a challenge match during one of his exhibitions. He saw that I was up against it in those days as a woman in a man's world and he cut me a break. I'll always remember him for that.
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Per Evelyn 1996;
When Fats was a very young boy in New York he and his dad would get caught up in the street action when large groups would form doing what men did back in those days. A woman worked her way into the crowd, Fats dad (merchant marine) didn't think it was a place for a woman and wanted her to leave, he had fatty piss on her leg, fats wasn't even 10 yr old yet.
Fran, your post made me remember one of the incidents that ''jumped'' out at me when I talked with Evelyn 6 weeks after his death and did a video, fatty pissed on a womans leg, probably around 1910 or so.
 
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Nostroke said:
I didnt have to be there- that was beautiful- here is story from Jimmy Reids site (freepoollessons.com)

The Last Johnston City Tournament:
1972, Round-Robin, 9 Ball and 1 Pocket only.
Three weeks, you play everybody.

Tournament eve; Minnesota Fats ( Rudolph Wanderone ) is speaking live on a midwest tv and radio broadcast, trying to help Paulie Jansco promote the tournament. Here is one of the things he said, and I quote " Jimmy Reid is here from LA, and wants to play-any man from any land, for any amount he can count, anything he can bring, any game he can name."

Three weeks later-finals night, there are 4 players left in the 9 ball and 4 players left in the 1 pocket, yours truly is top of the board in both divisions, I'm ahead of Norman Hitchcock 1 game to love in the 1 pocket semi-finals and we had just begun the 2nd. game----when all of a sudden a voice comes over the microphone;

This is the FBI, everybody stay where you are, we've got all the exits closed, and this tournament is over. They had 33 Subpoenas and 12 indightments for interstate gambling act and income tax evasion. We all had to appear at a special Grand Jury hearing that was scheduled for 9am next morning in St Louis, Mo.. Come to find out, that the tournament eve quote of Fats was grounds enough for the interstate gambling charges, they (FBI) only made one mistake, they served Fats with a subpoena also.

About 1/2 of us had gone in and testified one at a time before the Grand Jury, then Fats showed up and demanded to testify next. When he got through testifying and came out into the corridor--- the whole Grand Jury followed him out and wanted his autograph. They decided not to follow the U.S. District Attorneys advice and immediately dropped the charges against all the poolplayers ( yours truly included ) that had been indicted.

Happy but curious I asked Fatty ( which is what his friends called him ) what had happened. He replied, "I told them that these poolplayers were harmless and to stop wasting the taxpayers' money, that they had 2 people subpoenaed out there, Dirty Low Down Red and Omaha Fats, and that if you gave them a blood test it would come back 90% hotdog & 10% coffee." Fatty was the best talker I've ever known, the DA didn't have a chance. Fatty got us in and Fatty got us out... New York Fats - alias - Minnesota Fats - ( Fatty ) like Ali was "The Greatest"...


The line is practically a non sequitur but it still strikes me as hilarious and so Fattyistic.
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Sounds exactly the way he acted during his physical for the war, when he was told to lay down on a white sheet, that had just had a heavy man with scabs laying on it before him. Rudolph refused till the sheet was changed, he caused so much commotion during his physical, they ''kicked em out'' of the war. :)
 
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