Great unknown roadies
- Thread starter huckster
- Start date
another cute quirk i noticed about nicky was that he always bought his own bottles of water with him. The 1st time i had seen him in quite a while was over at boomers that used to be just north of boston. I pull up, it is about 30 degrees or so outside and there was nicky doing exercises up against a pole. I asked Mike Zuglan who he was ans Mike told me "Probably the only man in here that can beat me". at that time it spoke volumes about his playing ability..........mike
another quick story about nicky. He played in the New York State 9 ball championships at florence fullers pool hall in binghamton NY. Nick has to play Jim Rempe, Rempe had no idea until later who nick was. Anyway, they are playing a race to 11 and the match was tight all the way thru. Jimmy plays what he thinks is a nice save and says to nicky, finally a decent safe. I wish i knew how to use the wei board for this next part. but oh well. Jimmy Rempe had left nicky a safe shot that nicky would have to go to the short rail and then the long rail to hit the ball which was located between 2 other balls. So nicky plays a 2 rail kick to hit the object ball. not only does he acomplish this shot but he pushes the object ball out from between the other two balls and rolls the cue ball up behind one of the other 2 balls. walks over to Jim Rempe and says out loud. Now thats how you play a safe. when they were done rempe's wife told him that he looked like he had been thru a war he was so frazzled. then Jim asks alan hopkins. who the hell is this guy. Alan says, don't you remember him. they used to call him the indian. that was a hell of a match that day. he had another great one at the same tournament when he was playing Jerry "Bugsy" Feil. can have that one another day........................mike
when Nicky was playing Jerry BUGSY Feil at the same tournament as the incident with Rempe. anyway. Jerry left nicky with the 1 ball and the 9 ball almost frozen to the short railmaybe a 1/16 of an inch netween the 9 and the rail and about the same distance between the 1 ball and the 9 in a small line. please try to picture this in your mind the 2 balls were in a straight line just ioff the short rail (like you would spot 2 balls on the foot spot. one right behind the other. well that is how they were set up. anyway, nicky has no way to go to hit the 1 ball except that he would have to kick the length of the table to hit it since anyother way was blocked. so nicky shoots the cue ball the length of the table and hit it with just enough speed to freeze all 3 balls together in that line. Jerry comes over and picks up the cue ball thinking bad hit and when nick shows him the error of his ways jerry offers nick the cueball for ball in hand. nick told him..no just put it back where you got it. Jerry says, but i fouled. either put it back or i wont play. so jerry put it back and nick went on to beat him.....but it sure was funny to watch..........mike
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Mexican Johnny Vasquez
No, Mexican Johnny Vasquez didnt do magic tricks. He was an all-around top bar and pool room hustler. We called him "Big Head" in Chicago. If you knew him you could see how aprapos that was. He was the big gun in Chicago for years and all the road hogs would have to go through him. He was the best bar player in Chicago, but his specialty was One pocket on a 5 x 10. He couldnt read or write but loved betting horses so much that he learned to read the Racing Form. The reason he left Chicago was he had borrowed $200 from a 5 percent a week Mob Juice man from Cicero IL named Al Milstein. Johnny ducked payment for many weeks and the interest kept inflating the loan. Fearing a beating or worse, Johnny fled Chicago. The ironic thing was, Milstein had a few action bars in Cicero and with Johnny gone, the action dropped considerably. Milstein even tried to put out the word that all was forgiven and just come back to Chicago, other guys had volunteered to pay off the debt; that's how bad everyone, myself included, missed Johnny's action. Johnny knew too many guys that had gotten beatings for non payment, and didnt trust Milstein, so he never came back. With Johnny gone, the action in Chicago fell off at least 40 percent and never recovered.
the Beard
ironman said:
No, Mexican Johnny Vasquez didnt do magic tricks. He was an all-around top bar and pool room hustler. We called him "Big Head" in Chicago. If you knew him you could see how aprapos that was. He was the big gun in Chicago for years and all the road hogs would have to go through him. He was the best bar player in Chicago, but his specialty was One pocket on a 5 x 10. He couldnt read or write but loved betting horses so much that he learned to read the Racing Form. The reason he left Chicago was he had borrowed $200 from a 5 percent a week Mob Juice man from Cicero IL named Al Milstein. Johnny ducked payment for many weeks and the interest kept inflating the loan. Fearing a beating or worse, Johnny fled Chicago. The ironic thing was, Milstein had a few action bars in Cicero and with Johnny gone, the action dropped considerably. Milstein even tried to put out the word that all was forgiven and just come back to Chicago, other guys had volunteered to pay off the debt; that's how bad everyone, myself included, missed Johnny's action. Johnny knew too many guys that had gotten beatings for non payment, and didnt trust Milstein, so he never came back. With Johnny gone, the action in Chicago fell off at least 40 percent and never recovered.
the Beard
Voodoo Daddy
One Pocket 101
01rkclassic said:
Billy Pay is a solid player, I seen him outrun the nutz with lil trouble. The day I saw him we were surrounded by talent...Corbin Nick, Jelico Billy and a host of others at a small town monthly that drew big calcutta cash but Billy was the big dog in the lil cage that day. JG-n-KY has the scope on that action.
freddy the beard said:
I can understand the nickname, he could wear two hats.
They had a pretty tough golf game at the Family Fun Center back in those days (5x10) and Johnny used to do pretty good in that game.
I also remember him beating Andy Hudson playing1p and old Andy played pretty good 1p.
Freddy, did you ever play Andy any Banks?
Andy Hudson?
I dont know the guy and am sure we never played. In those days I got very little bank action, save from the big name champions. Mex Johnny had quit playing me years earlier.
the Beard
ironman said:
I dont know the guy and am sure we never played. In those days I got very little bank action, save from the big name champions. Mex Johnny had quit playing me years earlier.
the Beard
Family Fun Center Golf
It's over 20 years ago, but Poker Paul & I left No. CA & took a little summer road trip and spent a couple of weeks in Denver playing at the Family Fun Center & Colfax Billiards. I got lucky the first day at Family and was asking questions about the rules in the ring game & a guy in a suit asked me to play some for $50 & $5. I beat him & everybody else in there playing golf except for one guy. He was called "Cigar Sam", and we put up a thousand and played $100 & $10 a hickey. He had me stuck over $700 and I won the last two games before they closed and got away ONLY losing a little over $400. He was the only guy who beat me on the trip & I didn't want any more, so we left Denver & headed up to Cheyenne Pete's in Wyoming. We ran into Jr. Harris playing golf in Colorado Springs and Mark Tadd in Salt Lake, but that's another story. John Hendersonironman said:
jrhendy said:
Cigar Sam was Sam Jones, a skinny left handed guy with that short choppy stroke. He played, pretty dam good.
I bet that the guy in the suit was Al Hogue. When he played a lot and was in stroke, played better than any of them. Al died back aroun 92.
Sam was one of my favorites and perhaps one of the most miserable human beings I ever met. For some reason though, he used to keep me in stitches.
Old Sam though, could really play on a snooker table.
ironman said:
"Cheyenne" Pete Trujillo is one of the true gentleman of pool. He was always willing to take on anybody that strolled into town. Though Pete didn't win all of his battles, he had a reputation for being a tough customer for any roadie. He plays very well on the bar boxes IIRC.
Blackjack said:
I am glad to hear someone agree with me. I've always thought Pete to be one of the class acts of the game.
Not only bar tables, I can't think of anything he couldn't play pretty darn good. As you pointed, he didn't win them all, but they knew they had been in a battle.
You need a pretty good map to find the town you were in that day, Oneida, TN. I was there that day as I was for most of the monthly tournaments. Old Cecil (Billy) just overpowered that field and it was a tough group. Nick and Billy were just a few of the quality players that seemed to be in attendance every month. It had to be the best monthly in the southeast for a whileVoodoo Daddy said:
I took Charlie (Shannon) Bryant there also before many knew him. We got a good payday on that one.
The guy in the suit was named Gordon. He sold pacemakers & medical stuff & made a lot of $$. A good guy with some gamble. The regulars came up to me after I beat him & said "Don't worry about playing him anymore, we didn't know you could play". Sure enough, they took turns playing him - golf, 9 Ball (Andy) Billiards (Sam Jones) and hammered it anytime I tried to match up with him again. Sam was one of the best kickers I ever saw. Anything near a side pocket went in & he kept the pressure on constantly. I played golf all over the Western part of the country and he was as tough as they come. John Hendersonironman said:
Yeah, I had Cecil in the calcutta that day, no one seemed to know who he was. Even though he was from Louisville, I had only seen him just a couple of months before that. Just from the looks of him, you just had to play him. Cecil Paye...he can play!Ktown D said:
frankncali said:
Junior was (and still is, as far as I know) from Florala, a sleepy little town in SE Alabama. He has frequented all of the areas around there over the years.
He once told me that he made more money by getting the table closest to the toilet than anyone who ever won the tournaments. Everyone has to go to the toilet eventually, and they would want to jump on the little fat man.
Another story is the time that he was passing through a small town and stopped in at a pool room just to grab a bite to eat. The local pool hustler (a brash young kid) came in and started hounding everyone there for a game of snooker for $5 a point. He hassles Junior and says something to the effect "how about you, old man...you want to play?" Junior told the kid he (Jr) wouldn't be much of a game for the kid, so the kid said he would give Jr 30 points and the break. Jr said OK, broke and ran 100 points on the kid for a $650 loss to the young player. Jr said "I told you I wouldn't be much of a game for you."