From Mike Eufemia to Danny Harriman

F

frankwiener

New member
My first post everybody, hi and thanks for being there. And a special Hi to Danny H if he reads this. I actually think i was the one who got him interested in straight pool when he was here in Madison, Wisconsin at the Green Room, but he can confirm that. He was mostly into 9 ball back then.

The real reason for the post is history, and the great Mike Eufemia, who as many of you know is credited with a high run in excess of Willie, and I believe it. I saw him shoot.

It was 1963 in Baldwin, NY, on Long Island, famous a bit for some involvement in the Joey Buttafucco case for those who like that history.

There was a pool room owned by a nice gentleman named Ralph whose last name i can't remember, but he used to have the pros come in from time to time for exhibitions. In fact one of the most COLORFUL players ever, Onofrio Lauri, was there more regularly, as Ralph paid him a couple nights a week to be there and teach and yak.

Saw Jimmy Caras there at a point in his life where his glasses were as thick as coke bottles, but he still ran 55 or so in his exhibition.

But let's get to Mike. From the history i've seen he had the 600 ball run within WEEKS of this exhibition and was at the top of his game for sure.

Myself and my buddy Steve were the two best players in the Baldwin room so we decided Steve would play Mike and I'd referee. I did more than Steve suffice it to say.

Steve breaks, and Mike just starts running the balls in total silence with a methodicalness that was scary.

So when he gets to 50 balls or so, it actually starts to get a little boring especially since his position is so good, that he's shoot all short simple shots. At 65 it gets really boring.

Then at 75 or so, it starts to get fascinating in this sense: it occurs to me that i am watching a MACHINE AND NOT A MAN. He had turned himself into an optical computer making tiny adjustments, and another analogy might be that he was pure energy. But it was really just a machine like a punch press, repeating over and over.

Then at 90 balls, I'm racking and i PICK UP HIS BREAK BALL AND PUT ALL 15 BALLS IN THE RACK NOT THINKING.

i heard him gasp. i assure you he thought he could or at least wanted to run 700 balls that night, and by touching the break ball, i invalidated the run i would think.

So he ran another couple balls, 98 in all, and then did the usual trick shots, etc.

So here's my theory. like many things in life you have to let it go, to get it back.

My theory is that we have to be able to LOSE OUR HUMANITY for a moment to experience the ESSENCE OF HUMANITY. My cat can't run a single ball.

I'll be posting a nice 58 ball run on video shortly if i can figure out how. It's 12 minutes. I guess i shoot fast. i saw a 55 on there that was almost exactly double 24 minutes.

Anyway, tell me if i'm still handsome.

Wish i was there for Danny's 200 ball run. Easy game, eh, buddy?
 
Thanks for sharing! I haven't done it in a while, but I've picked up the break ball or have had another person do the same quite a few times!
 
Thanks for sharing! Reminds me, we have one guy here who absolutely loves Straight Pool (= one of the few apart from me), but who used to absentmindedly pick up and rack every break ball in sight, so that today, even though he won't do this anymore, there's hooting and bantering from all sides each and every time he has to rack, poor dude, really a shy, humble and exceedingly good person. ;)

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
_________________

„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti
 
frankwiener said:
Thread title: "From Mike Eufemia to Danny Harriman"
Click to expand...

Oh! Via the thread title, I thought this was Mike Eufemia himself, speaking from the grave, offering a public service message to Danny Harriman! :eek:

Phew, you had me going there!

:D
-Sean
 
Nice post!

I knew Mike, too, as he was my father's friend. He was a great technician at 14.1, though John Ervolino, another New Yorker who was playing his best pool in the 1960's, was probably just a bit better in his pattern play.

I recall watching Mike playing against Gene Nagy on a couple of occasions, and they were inspiring to behold.

Legendary referee Cue Ball Kelly told me of what he considered Mike's most remarkable achievement. According to Kelly, in six consecutive exhibitions at six different poolrooms, Mike ran 150 and out in every match he played, going an almost unfathomable 900 balls without an error.

FYI, Art "Babe" Cranfield is believed to have two different runs over 700, including a 768 on one occasion, but practice table runs were not counted with respect to the record. Mosconi's record came in a public exhibition.

Those were the days.
 
Wonderful to hear a reference to Onofrio Lauri, who absolutely was a colorful character. Michael Eufemia, "Ziggy," was a machine until he had to play in a tournament. I believe he only ever won one major tournament and died-literally- at another.

Onofrio Lauri fell at yet another tournament, breaking his hip I believe, thus ending his career.

I have a Saul Rich cue with "Michael Eufemia" stamped or burned into the shaft. I have no idea whether this was a Rich Q signature model or was personalized by or for Ziggy himself. rainmaker stick 2.jpg

rainmaker stick 3.jpg

rainmaker stick.jpg
 
sfleinen said:
Oh! Via the thread title, I thought this was Mike Eufemia himself, speaking from the grave, offering a public service message to Danny Harriman! :eek:

Phew, you had me going there!

:D
-Sean
Click to expand...
Being a gentile, I sometimes struggle with my yiddish spelling... I'm more inclined to say it, rather than write it [New York ya know].

...by any chance, did you mean "oy vey" instead of Oh! via?


:wink:
 
Dave said:
Being a gentile, I sometimes struggle with my yiddish spelling... I'm more inclined to say it, rather than write it [New York ya know].

...by any chance, did you mean "oy vey" instead of Oh! via?


:wink:
Click to expand...

Very funny! No, I meant it like:

"Oh!!
Via the thread title, I thought..." (or worded better, "Per the thread title")

...as in, looking at the thread title, thinking "this is Mike Eufemia, speaking from the grave, with a message for Danny Harriman". Then, when I open the thread, I see it's rather about a sequence, starting from Mike Eufemia, and ending with Danny Harriman.

I know, I know; it was one of them "should've been there" things. :o

-Sean
 
thanks for the warm welcome

didn't realize that the From/To would be interpreted that way. Wish mike could talk to us from the great beyond.

So here's the rest of the story. In between expulsions and suspensions at Hofstra, i worked at a place called House of Billiards a little west of where i lived in Merrick. I think it was Wantagh or Hicksville, doesn't matter.

The owner, a fellow named Ike Algaze had a general sporting goods store upstairs which was kind of fun, with basketballs, hockey sticks, all that, and then the basement was pool tables. I applied for a job there and got it because I knew the biz, and could play if the customer wanted to play, although like most shops, the tables were side by side.

But in addition he had purchased Rich Cue company from Saul Rich i believe is correct, and the cue pictured in one of the replies is indeed a Rich Cue but even older than the ones i sold. you can still see a handful on ebay.

As you may know, 80 percent of pool table are sold between thanksgiving and xmas or hanukah, and when new year's came, there was nothing really to do.

Ike having taken over the company would drive around the country, selling to billiard supply shops, not pool rooms, and then leave his car in Ohio let's say, and fly home for the weekend and his wife.

This of course was wearing, so he said, "Hey Frank, how would you like to sell the cues.

I said what the heck!!

It was Feb 4, cold in New York and i headed due south. Which was a real nice taste of freedom a job could have. Go wherever you want. 10 percent commission.

So my routine was to get into a city, get a city map, get the yellow pages, tear out billiard equipment and supplies, make X's on the map where they were, get in the gas line on odd days (yup topical eh? 1974) because i had a license plate ending in an odd number, and go around showing my cues.

It was AMAZING. I saw everything. The biggest collection of antique tables was housed by some guy in LasCruces New Mexico sort of in the side of a hill, with lathes so he could cut small wood inlay pieces for example for the airplanes in an aviator table that had peeled away.

Then i got to LA and watch Ray Martin win the world tourney. They made me a scorekeeper. I was in the practice room where all the fun was.

60 cities in six months. Houston took three days to hit all the spots. Amarillo Texas, not so long. Played my first game of snooker there.

How's that?
 
Ike Algaze

Frank:

Really enjoyed your post. I'm always interested in tracing the history of the various members of the Rich family and the companies with which they were involved. Please tell us more about Ike's business.
Where were his cues made? The Blue Book says that Rich Cues was in Freeport, but phone books list it as being in Valley Stream.
Did he do the work?
Did his cues resemble Rich Q products?
Any further recollections would be gratefully received.
 
oy

sfleinen said:
Very funny! No, I meant it like:

"Oh!!
Via the thread title, I thought..." (or worded better, "Per the thread title")

...as in, looking at the thread title, thinking "this is Mike Eufemia, speaking from the grave, with a message for Danny Harriman". Then, when I open the thread, I see it's rather about a sequence, starting from Mike Eufemia, and ending with Danny Harriman.

I know, I know; it was one of them "should've been there" things. :o

-Sean
Click to expand...

Sean,
I couldn't resist, forgive me.
i understood your post completely... but needed to read the "Oh! Via" three times.
I just thought I'd try to tie it all together.... this did start right in the middle of the Island.

Via con dios.
 
BayGene said:
Frank:

Really enjoyed your post. I'm always interested in tracing the history of the various members of the Rich family and the companies with which they were involved. Please tell us more about Ike's business.
Where were his cues made? The Blue Book says that Rich Cues was in Freeport, but phone books list it as being in Valley Stream.
Did he do the work?
Did his cues resemble Rich Q products?
Any further recollections would be gratefully received.
Click to expand...

Are they related to Star Cue?
 
Great Story

Frank,

Great story and 'those were the days'

BTW - the guy in Las Cruces with all the old tables, was the Olhauson family. They had a huge collection. I know some of them ended up in San Diego.

Donnie Olhauson was a table mechanic (actually serviced the old GC1's at College Billiards back in mid 1960's). I owned College from 1996 through 2004. I think some of the better tables ended up in their warehouse.

Since they have now moved their plant to Tennessee, who knows where they are.

Mark Griffin


frankwiener said:
didn't realize that the From/To would be interpreted that way. Wish mike could talk to us from the great beyond.

So here's the rest of the story. In between expulsions and suspensions at Hofstra, i worked at a place called House of Billiards a little west of where i lived in Merrick. I think it was Wantagh or Hicksville, doesn't matter.

The owner, a fellow named Ike Algaze had a general sporting goods store upstairs which was kind of fun, with basketballs, hockey sticks, all that, and then the basement was pool tables. I applied for a job there and got it because I knew the biz, and could play if the customer wanted to play, although like most shops, the tables were side by side.

But in addition he had purchased Rich Cue company from Saul Rich i believe is correct, and the cue pictured in one of the replies is indeed a Rich Cue but even older than the ones i sold. you can still see a handful on ebay.

As you may know, 80 percent of pool table are sold between thanksgiving and xmas or hanukah, and when new year's came, there was nothing really to do.

Ike having taken over the company would drive around the country, selling to billiard supply shops, not pool rooms, and then leave his car in Ohio let's say, and fly home for the weekend and his wife.

This of course was wearing, so he said, "Hey Frank, how would you like to sell the cues.

I said what the heck!!

It was Feb 4, cold in New York and i headed due south. Which was a real nice taste of freedom a job could have. Go wherever you want. 10 percent commission.

So my routine was to get into a city, get a city map, get the yellow pages, tear out billiard equipment and supplies, make X's on the map where they were, get in the gas line on odd days (yup topical eh? 1974) because i had a license plate ending in an odd number, and go around showing my cues.

It was AMAZING. I saw everything. The biggest collection of antique tables was housed by some guy in LasCruces New Mexico sort of in the side of a hill, with lathes so he could cut small wood inlay pieces for example for the airplanes in an aviator table that had peeled away.

Then i got to LA and watch Ray Martin win the world tourney. They made me a scorekeeper. I was in the practice room where all the fun was.

60 cities in six months. Houston took three days to hit all the spots. Amarillo Texas, not so long. Played my first game of snooker there.

How's that?
Click to expand...
 
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