For the historians of the game...

azhousepro

azhousepro

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I'm playing around with some old National Billiard News stuff on the site. Here is the old NBN story of Mike Sigel winning the 1983 US Open 9-Ball Championship.

www.azbilliards.com

Sigel Closes The Year A Winner - News - AZBILLIARDS.COM

The 8th Annual U.S. Open proved to be the best yet with a strong field of 41 players, the most ever. The prize fund was $13,750 with 1st place of $5,000. Such notable players were: defending champ David Howard, all past champions; Mike Sigel, Steve Mizerak, Allen Hopkins and Louie Roberts. Other
www.azbilliards.com www.azbilliards.com
 
Thanks for that! From the mid 70s up until the color of Money movie in 1986 - a lot of rooms around the U.S. had closed down. Only us hardcore pool guys were still playing regularly and keeping this thing alive. There were not many rooms left from the mid 60s hustler movie pool boom by the early 1980s - most of the rooms still left in 1983 from the early/ mid 60s were run down; but man, they had some character- no frills, just pool, and a lot of smoke!
Most of the old Palmer and Brunswick cue cases that still exist from the 70s and are in good collectible condition usually have that smoke odor inside the case that is difficult to remove, if you so desire. Even the original linen wraps from 60s and 70s cues are penetrated with pool hall smoke odor.
I miss those days- when the ONLY people in any pool room were very serious about their game. Most of the real good players that remained in the rooms in the early 80s from the 60s pool boom are gone now- the smoking, the drinking, the lifestyle killed them off - cancer and heart attacks were the common killers- so sad. I am talking about guys who would be 72 to 85 years old today if still alive. That's the group that kept this thing alive from 1975 to 1986 - we owe a lot to those guys!
 
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My (long term) goal is to get all of the content from National Billiard News onto the site. Data enter the old tourneys and payouts and post the articles that make sense to post. Of course, I have a lot of goals like that with the new site platform.
 
azhousepro said:
My (long term) goal is to get all of the content from National Billiard News onto the site. Data enter the old tourneys and payouts and post the articles that make sense to post. Of course, I have a lot of goals like that with the new site platform.
Click to expand...
Do you need volunteer mods?
This site has been growing like wildfire.

Great work.
 
It has always been an idea. The problem is trying to find volunteers who are not politically leaning.

What I really need is data entry. I've considered looking for data entry help on a site like Fiverr. Contacted one guy, who flaked on me.
 
azhousepro said:
I'm playing around with some old National Billiard News stuff on the site. Here is the old NBN story of Mike Sigel winning the 1983 US Open 9-Ball Championship.

www.azbilliards.com

Sigel Closes The Year A Winner - News - AZBILLIARDS.COM

The 8th Annual U.S. Open proved to be the best yet with a strong field of 41 players, the most ever. The prize fund was $13,750 with 1st place of $5,000. Such notable players were: defending champ David Howard, all past champions; Mike Sigel, Steve Mizerak, Allen Hopkins and Louie Roberts. Other
www.azbilliards.com www.azbilliards.com
Click to expand...
Wow...41 entries...I first went in 2000..Barry opened the field to 286...he had many hiccoughs along the way....
...but who did a better job?
 
pt109 said:
Wow...41 entries...I first went in 2000..Barry opened the field to 286...he had many hiccoughs along the way....
...but who did a better job?
Click to expand...
I found it interesting that even back then, there is talk in his article about how the players need to trust him and he will pay them. Not sure if that was directed at any slow pay issues like he had in the later years, but it jumped out at me.

Even with those issues though, I don't think anyone can question his dedication to trying to make something for the players.
 
azhousepro said:
It has always been an idea. The problem is trying to find volunteers who are not politically leaning.

What I really need is data entry. I've considered looking for data entry help on a site like Fiverr. Contacted one guy, who flaked on me.
Click to expand...
if you post work in pieces or large chunks.
I can dedicate time to support AZ.

maybe a separate thread for people that want to turn it into a newspaper club or something with other people.
 
azhousepro said:
I'm playing around with some old National Billiard News stuff on the site. Here is the old NBN story of Mike Sigel winning the 1983 US Open 9-Ball Championship.

www.azbilliards.com

Sigel Closes The Year A Winner - News - AZBILLIARDS.COM

The 8th Annual U.S. Open proved to be the best yet with a strong field of 41 players, the most ever. The prize fund was $13,750 with 1st place of $5,000. Such notable players were: defending champ David Howard, all past champions; Mike Sigel, Steve Mizerak, Allen Hopkins and Louie Roberts. Other
www.azbilliards.com www.azbilliards.com
Click to expand...
Joe Kerr in the lineup on December 8. Same Joe Kerr who refereed so many tourneys in the 80's? I remember him being equally as hefty as the Miz in those days. Miz on-mic once commented on Joe's fine singing voice -- calling him the Pavarotti of Pool. :)
 
Yup, same guy.

If you want an amazing singing voice from a pool player, give Dennis Orcollo a shot. He sings like an angel.
 
azhousepro said:
My (long term) goal is to get all of the content from National Billiard News onto the site. Data enter the old tourneys and payouts and post the articles that make sense to post. Of course, I have a lot of goals like that with the new site platform.
Click to expand...
I thought the owner of the newspaper {Conrad Burkman} ?donated all the old issues onto the web before he died?
 
Here is the article for the 83 players of the year, Belinda Campos and Mike Sigel...

www.azbilliards.com

Players of The Year - News - AZBILLIARDS.COM

I suppose that 1983 could be called the year of the tournament. As there were 22 events (excluding TV events) which went into deciding the player of the year. The top 20 male money winners won over $379,000 in cash, not including prizes or TV money. Total prize money put up in 1983 was well over a m
www.azbilliards.com www.azbilliards.com
 
I tried to start a database people could use for reference back in the 90s but the technology to do it efficiently and without significant cost , just wasn't there. About the best you could do , was microfilm , which was still labor intensive.
It might be doable now, if you could get enough people from the internet interested in building it.
It's just too much, even for a small group.
It's a shame, that we don't at least have as much of the information on the top players as possible. If it had not been for a few old timers , guys like Rags Fitzpatrick , Clem Metz, Weldon Rogers, George Rood , probably would have been left out of the history.
 
book collector said:
I tried to start a database people could use for reference back in the 90s but the technology to do it efficiently and without significant cost , just wasn't there. About the best you could do , was microfilm , which was still labor intensive.
It might be doable now, if you could get enough people from the internet interested in building it.
It's just too much, even for a small group.
It's a shame, that we don't at least have as much of the information on the top players as possible. If it had not been for a few old timers , guys like Rags Fitzpatrick , Clem Metz, Weldon Rogers, George Rood , probably would have been left out of the history.
Click to expand...
I completely agree. AzB does what I consider a great job of documenting the last 20 years of the game. It's not perfect, believe me. There is so much history from before then that is getting lost to time though. And it seems like there is such a small group of people who really care about the legends of the game, today.
 
book collector said:
I tried to start a database people could use for reference back in the 90s but the technology to do it efficiently and without significant cost , just wasn't there. About the best you could do , was microfilm , which was still labor intensive.
It might be doable now, if you could get enough people from the internet interested in building it.
It's just too much, even for a small group.
It's a shame, that we don't at least have as much of the information on the top players as possible. If it had not been for a few old timers , guys like Rags Fitzpatrick , Clem Metz, Weldon Rogers, George Rood , probably would have been left out of the history.
Click to expand...
What information were you trying to gather?
 
azhousepro said:
What information were you trying to gather?
Click to expand...
My first priority was to get as many pictures of each player as I could find or take . Tournament information if any , gambling matches otherwise , trying to gauge their level of play compared to each other. Where they were born or raised , connections to other players as mentors, Most pool players say they are self taught, but they aren't , they may not have been shown a specific idea, but learned as they played someone more knowledgeable. Stories about match ups etc.
About anything that seemed interesting .
 
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