Feel of the Times ESPN

I remember seeing a place (on tv or online) maybe 15-20 years ago with sledge hammers and computers, printers, old office furniture and other things you could go smash. Was a flat rate thing. $50 or something. I never went to it, but they took anything breakable and repurposed it to be smashed and charged people to go smash. Seems like a insurance nightmare as far as owning that biz, but I did see it. Don’t know what happened to it.

Can’t say I haven’t smashed a few things in my life, I don’t as often as I did when I was younger. Now I just don’t care lol

Fatboy<——-mellowing with age
There was a fad some years back where everyone got to use a sledge and beat an old car to a pulp. I can remember watching videos of people pounding the car to pieces.
 
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Didn't Grady have a rule like that in some of his tournaments? The only exception was when a player called a safe shot. But otherwise the incoming player could always make his opponent shoot again if his opponent shot and missed.

I kind of like that rule, since it eliminates 90% of the luck in 9 ball and 10 ball. Accidental safes are far more prevalent than missed shots that find another pocket.


Grady liked different versions of 9ball. He ran at least one back pocket 9 B tournament that is recorded on Accu-Stats
 
Weenie Beanie's Jack 'n' Jill Cue Club in Virginia used to be the best 24/7 action room in the country for a while in the late 60's - early 70's. The only thing wrong with it was that nearly all of the tables were Gandys, with maybe 2 or 3 Gold Crowns thrown in. The tournament tables in the back were both Gandys, and heaven help any player who wasn't familiar with their quirks.
We had one table that got all the action that was called “Jaws”. The owner liked the idea that the table was so tuff, but in reality one of the pockets was f’d up and it was piece of shit.
 
Weenie Beanie's Jack 'n' Jill Cue Club in Virginia used to be the best 24/7 action room in the country for a while in the late 60's - early 70's. The only thing wrong with it was that nearly all of the tables were Gandys, with maybe 2 or 3 Gold Crowns thrown in. The tournament tables in the back were both Gandys, and heaven help any player who wasn't familiar with their quirks.
1971, on my way to Bean/Devallaes' room, I had too stop.

My inline 140 cu in. Ford Falcon, with hydraulic lifters needed fixin.
I pulled off the hwy, got a hotel room right next to an auto repair shop.
I pulled the head, walked it over.
Next morning got up, installed the new head/fluids and got back on the road.
Total cost, including room, bout $160.

I always carried tools JIC a breakdown occurred, after that, I only drove Volvos/41yrs straight.

While at Weenie Beanies place I got a game I liked with all the breaks/9 ball 9' GC.

Welllllll, in this damp, dirty play conditions below ground pool room, I Never made a ball on the break. :) I live in the dry desert.

I played Gumps on the 4 1/2 x 9' G Crown that was room centered, close to the E wall where tables were placed.

I remember St. Louie/Louie Roberts locking horns with Carella.
Carella had em tapped out, Roberts was NOW down to his gold jewelry.

Carella valued it at $800 and they played one more set..........

But C warfare kicked in and Louie came back and busted Carella.
 
1971, on my way to Bean/Devallaes' room, I had too stop.

My inline 140 cu in. Ford Falcon, with hydraulic lifters needed fixin.
I pulled off the hwy, got a hotel room right next to an auto repair shop.
I pulled the head, walked it over.
Next morning got up, installed the new head/fluids and got back on the road.
Total cost, including room, bout $160.

I always carried tools JIC a breakdown occurred, after that, I only drove Volvos/41yrs straight.

While at Weenie Beanies place I got a game I liked with all the breaks/9 ball 9' GC.

Welllllll, in this damp, dirty play conditions below ground pool room, I Never made a ball on the break. :) I live in the dry desert.

I played Gumps on the 4 1/2 x 9' G Crown that was room centered, close to the E wall where tables were placed.

I remember St. Louie/Louie Roberts locking horns with Carella.
Carella had em tapped out, Roberts was NOW down to his gold jewelry.

Carella valued it at $800 and they played one more set..........

But C warfare kicked in and Louie came back and busted Carella.
All gone now, one way or the other. You are a survivor Bill!
 
This particular tournament allowed the incoming player to pass back any shot.
This sounds like an interesting rule. Forgive the ignorance... So how did intentional safe shots work? Could you call them out? I missed this era of pool by about 10 years, obviously.

Edit: Never mind, watching the vid and it is "total offense"
Seems like a pretty awesome variation.
 
Was this ESPN or was this Prime Network?

This particular tournament was unique as it was an all offense, pass back experiment. I believe Roger Griffis won it.

Was it the one that had a match time limit on it? I remember seeing that thinking it was pretty dumb, and Grady in a commentary on another video said it was one of the dumbest ideas tried.
 
This sounds like an interesting rule. Forgive the ignorance... So how did intentional safe shots work? Could you call them out? I missed this era of pool by about 10 years, obviously.

Edit: Never mind, watching the vid and it is "total offense"
Seems like a pretty awesome variation.
Upside/downside. The format was great for the “tv mentality” that became the driving criteria. Lots of tape time was devoted to pool, most particularly to the women’s side. They didn’t suffer the fracturing experienced by multiple competing organizational factions on the men’s side. Unfortunately, the network doled out the air time against main stream major sports under the (probably justly proven) mindset that there was a very small market percentage that would watch pool any time of the day or night regardless of major programming.
Also unfortunately, this was the point at which the representative “packaged version” of professional pool began being constantly dumbed down in an effort to grab additional audience that didn’t have the understanding, or certainly patience, to watch pros NOT make balls via spectacular shots ad infinitum as opposed to playing out the defensive & cerebral chess game involved in real mastery.
Checkers sells better than chess.
Now, of course, axe throwing & cheerleading have pushed pool off the mainstream airwaves in the US. But pool as a US organizational component(s) gave it a lot of help.
 
Was it the one that had a match time limit on it? I remember seeing that thinking it was pretty dumb, and Grady in a commentary on another video said it was one of the dumbest ideas tried.
Yes, they had some overall match time. Earl was trying to run around the table trying to clean up as quickly as he could.
 
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