Greenleaf biography (revised first edition)

kling&allen

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I recently pushed out a revised first edition of my Greenleaf biography (Amazon link.) There's no major substantive changes from the original first edition, but I added a few stories I encountered since the book was first published. The following story about the 1923 Tournament League is my favorite addition as it involves some funny antics between Greenleaf and Taberski. 1923 may have been the high-water mark for public interest in professional pool.

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To capitalize on the continued popularity of both pool and Greenleaf, Brunswick organized a nationwide tournament league in 1923 to determine the world champion. The tournament league was the biggest and best pool event to date—and perhaps ever. The top 16 players would play round-robin games in 16 different cities. But who would the top 16 include? Ralph’s nemesis, the Snail, had not played professionally since he fussily quit in 1919 when the shot clock was introduced. Taberski had not remained silent during his “retirement.” He boasted to the press for months on end that he was the true champion and had never been defeated by Greenleaf. Greenleaf, seeking to end the Snail’s wailing, offered to play Taberski under any terms to settle the matter.

Pool’s promoters, including Brunswick and the pool halls that would host the tournament league, spent much of 1923 negotiating with Greenleaf and Taberski to ensure that both would play. The Snail cried about the rules that might apply. Ralph threatened to hold out, and play exhibitions instead, if the tournament purse was not sufficient. Brunswick somehow managed to appease everyone’s ego and the league began in October 1923. The top four finishers in the league would meet in a four-city championship playoff to determine the world champion.

Greenleaf began league play with a fury, winning 18 of his first 19 matches. The Snail, to his credit, won 9 of his first 13 matches. But days before he was scheduled to face Greenleaf for the first time since 1918, the Snail became afflicted with mysterious eye troubles (perhaps a cyst) and threatened to quit. Taberski was cured by a “miracle medical treatment” and agreed to finally play Greenleaf on December 10, 1923.

Taberski arrived at Philadelphia’s Hudson Billiard Parlor wearing glasses and complaining of blurry vision. Whether the Snail was trying to hustle Ralph, or whether he really had eye surgery to remote a cyst, is not known. Either way Greenleaf showed no mercy and destroyed the Snail in the first three games. The match was a marvel of pool strategy, with the cagey Snail still capable of playing incredible safeties and position. The Snail won the fourth and final game of the set, showing he was still a threat, glasses or not. Greenleaf did not hesitate to seek every advantage throughout the match:

Taberski confessed after the match last night that he was at a total loss on long shots as he could barely make out the position of the objective ball in many instances…Greenleaf played it so that Taberski had long shots to try for and in these instances the man from the city of autos [Taberski] was lost. He missed several shots at critical stages of the fray’s progress. The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 12, 1923.

Having defeated the Snail in tournament play for the first time, Ralph then outplayed the field for the remainder of the league matches, winning 92 of the 112 league games. The Snail, proving that he deserved his place among the top professionals even after his four-year absence, finished second with 75 wins. The two dueling greats, along with Bennie Allen and Andrew St. Jean, would embark on a four-city playoff tour—Philadelphia, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Detroit—to determine the world champion.

Ralph’s strong play continued through the playoff, winning 8 out of 12 of his games. He won two and lost two against Taberski—including a key game on the final day of the playoff—but it was Bennie Allen who secured second place to face Greenleaf for the championship. For 13 innings in the finale, Allen held his own, only trailing Greenleaf 38 to 42. But as is the fate of many players described in this book, Allen sadly sat in his chair while Greenleaf took the table in the 14th inning and ran 83 and out to secure yet another world championship.
 

Bob Jewett

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.... Ralph’s strong play continued through the playoff, winning 8 out of 12 of his games. He won two and lost two against Taberski—including a key game on the final day of the playoff—but it was Bennie Allen who secured second place to face Greenleaf for the championship. For 13 innings in the finale, Allen held his own, only trailing Greenleaf 38 to 42. But as is the fate of many players described in this book, Allen sadly sat in his chair while Greenleaf took the table in the 14th inning and ran 83 and out to secure yet another world championship.
These days a final of only 125 seems a little short.
 

Bob Jewett

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Yes but back then it was on a 5x10.
Greenleaf ran 83 and out on a 5x10.
How does that compute to a 4 1/2x9 ?
It depends a lot on the pocket size. I've heard different stories about the pockets back then, and the championship match tables may have been special. I believe the championship balls were 2 5/16 based on descriptions in a Brunswick catalog.
 

kling&allen

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These days a final of only 125 seems a little short.

For these 1920s pro leagues, it looks like there was an attempt to have a standardized format for games so the league 'box score' would be understandable in the morning paper without more context. One-on-one challenge matches then were often multi-day, 300+ point, affairs.

But in those days an 80+ ball run was very unusual. Based on Ursitti's records, during the regular league season (16 players, each playing around 120 games), the high run was 101 by Greenleaf. Second place (Allen) was 92, with no other players running over 80. In the 48 games from the playoff among the top 4 league finishers, the high run was 63 (Greenleaf again). So 83 and out for the world championship was a remarkable feat.

Here are Ursitti's stats from the playoff:

1685463753075.png



The "Big Bertha" table currently at Raytown Rec was the table most likely used during the Kansas City leg of this playoff. But its pockets have been modified over the years for one pocket and its original configuration was lost to time.
 
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AtLarge

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Yes, I'm pretty confident in Ursitti's data there.
How did a player (3 of them) get over 1200 points playing 12 games (including some losses) to 100 points?

Does BG mean "Best Game," and does that mean the game with the fewest innings? Does the BG column apply only to games they won? Otherwise, hard to see how St. Jean would have total innings of 299 with a BG of 30.

What are the numbers 38/20/13 after Bennie Allen's name in the playoff game?

Sorry, Sam, not meaning to stump you here, just curious looking at some of these old stats.
 

kling&allen

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How did a player (3 of them) get over 1200 points playing 12 games (including some losses) to 100 points?

Does BG mean "Best Game," and does that mean the game with the fewest innings? Does the BG column apply only to games they won? Otherwise, hard to see how St. Jean would have total innings of 299 with a BG of 30.

What are the numbers 38/20/13 after Bennie Allen's name in the playoff game?

Sorry, Sam, not meaning to stump you here, just curious looking at some of these old stats.

All good questions. I misread Bob's question. The playoffs were 125 points also and the "100" in Ursitti's chart above is a typo. Here's the raw data from Ursitti:

1685707893260.png


And for Greenleaf specifically:

1685707999886.png


These totals don't match up to Ursitti's table from my previous post, so his data is off. Also his HR total for the May 1 championship match says 85 in the above, but 83 in his summary and in the news reports of the day. So Charlie must have had a rare bad day when he assembled this information!

Here's what ran on the wire about the run:

1685708699533.png
 

kling&allen

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Does BG mean "Best Game," and does that mean the game with the fewest innings? Does the BG column apply only to games they won? Otherwise, hard to see how St. Jean would have total innings of 299 with a BG of 30.

What are the numbers 38/20/13 after Bennie Allen's name in the playoff game?

For Allen, 38/20/13 is total points, high run, and number of innings.

Best game is harder to answer and I don't know that Ursitti ever defined his stat metrics. Looking at some of his tables, best game would have to apply only to won games and is the lowest number of innings.

I have PDFs of all of Ursitti's data if anyone wants them. Mike was going to post them in his AZB database eventually. Deno Andrews also has them on his scribd site:

 

RabbiHippie

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"Best Game" was as common a stat as "High Run" for 3-Cushion Billiards in newspapers of the time and shows up in Ursitti's history volumes for Billiards. It meant the fewest number of innings taken to reach the final score in a single game. I'd say it has the same meaning for Straight Pool. So a run of 125- or 150-and-out from a player's first turn at the table would be a Best Game of 1.

Tiff Denton was the 1923 world champion in 3-Cushion and worked at the Kling & Allen room in Kansas City. (He was from the same small hometown as me.) Here's an article about his high run of 17 and best game of 30 innings that were new records set during his rookie season as a pro in 1919. Tiff won 50-24 which means he scored 50-points in 30 innings or a single game average of 1.67 for his "Best Game."

I'd say that billiards (the pocket-less variety) was still more popular than pool, in terms of both player participation and fan following, through the 1930's. That seems surprising compared to today where it's rare to even find a "true" billiards table.

18th Shot Missed by .jpg
 
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RabbiHippie

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Look for my post in the Main Forum about Greenleaf and Emmett Blankenship. R. A. "Jake" Dyer just shared an excerpt from my book, The Oklahoma Roots of One Pocket, that discusses equipment and high runs by these guys and others.
 
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