How did pool become a part of your life?

Rackemep

Rackemep

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
When did you first start playing and what was it about the game that hooked you?

For me pool started out as something to occupy my time while being a rebellious high schooler ...I would ditch class and go play at the local pool room. (Dont blame my parents for that one...they were great...I was just a shithead)...Anyways I started watching some of the better players that frequented the room and then I would try to replicate what I saw them do...I picked it up fairly quick and the next thing I know I was hooked!

I loved (and still do) the atmosphere in the pool rooms...There was generally good music playing and good conversation to be had with people from all walks of life. The sound of the balls being shot and dropped in a pocket was like music to me...I still remember the feeling after my first ever B&R and my first time winning a tourney...That feeling is like a drug to me and I'm always searching to get that high on the pool table again...

So what got you hooked on pool?
 
Dad did a lot of road hustling, started taking me to bars when I was around 6 years old.

Both my parents were touring musicians so we're on the road a lot.
 
What started it.

Rackemep said:
When did you first start playing and what was it about the game that hooked you?

For me pool started out as something to occupy my time while being a rebellious high schooler ...I would ditch class and go play at the local pool room. (Dont blame my parents for that one...they were great...I was just a shithead)...Anyways I started watching some of the better players that frequented the room and then I would try to replicate what I saw them do...I picked it up fairly quick and the next thing I know I was hooked!

I loved (and still do) the atmosphere in the pool rooms...There was generally good music playing and good conversation to be had with people from all walks of life. The sound of the balls being shot and dropped in a pocket was like music to me...I still remember the feeling after my first ever B&R and my first time winning a tourney...That feeling is like a drug to me and I'm always searching to get that high on the pool table again...

So what got you hooked on pool?
Click to expand...

Well this was the 70's and Recreation Centers were where the kids all went to hang out and so did I. People would put quarters up and a team of players could keep the table all night at times and this was me and my friend David. Then eventually someone wanted to play for a buck a man and we started gambling and quickly found we could make 20 to 50 a piece in a night. It became really exciting to be playing king of the hill and keep the table and the quarters went all around the bar box we were playing on and stayed that way for a couple of years. I stopped having to mow grass and do odd jobs. I always had money for the things I needed and it was just fun because it involved all the kids in the surrounding neighborhoods. Pool was just plain exciting and I loved it. I think the Recreation Center made it all happen and it was so easy, it just did for me and a lot of other people.
 
A friend on the school bus lent me a paperback copy of The Hustler, then I saw the re-release of the movie and I was hooked. My grandparents bought me a chip-board top table for Christmas that year {1962, I think}, and I was off. By the time I was 16 I was playing in bars, the drinking age in NY at that time was only 18. In the fall of 1973 my wife and I moved into the city in which we both worked. I hit the local pool room less than two weeks later and it became my home away from home for the next 24 years or so. Moved to South Carolina in the fall of 1997 and played regularly in various places for several years. Bought a 4 x 8 table which has now survived three moves and play mostly at home these days. I still love the game, just don't compete much anymore.
 
All the (not old enough to drive) kids in my town went to the movies on Friday night. My friends and I did too starting about 12. Coincidentally that's when we started smoking pot. Well we got the bright idea that we would start using our allowance money to buy a little weed instead of going the movies. We had to figure out something to do to kill the few hours we were supposed to be seeing a movie during.

We migrated over to the pizza joint/bar next door to theatre. We could drink water and pay for pool and the owner would let us hang out. I fell in love playing in that place. Nothing special, pretty crappy bar tables with crappy house cues. Started playing in different places, an arcade we could walk to.

We all turned 16 and started driving. My best friend of the group and I kept playing and playing a lot. We'd hustle all the bars with a day crowd when they'd let us in. We would stay out at the pool hall all night. We talked the owner of the arcade we played at into letting us hold under the table cash tournaments with our friends.

I quit playing seriously when I got my first serious girlfriend at 17. I played here and there but nothing serious. I dated a girl from 19-22 and it was a shitty breakup for me. I took up playing pool again just to get my mind off of it. I'm 25 now and have been playing regularly, more when I get to feeling shitty.

I love the game so much because it's mentally engaging. I get myself in trouble with an idle mind. Pool is a game I'll never know everything about, so I'll always be thinking and learning while playing.
 
I was grounded for two months

During early High School years, we had a table in the basement. Once my dad realized I was enjoying myself when I was grounded, he sold it for Twenty Dollars during school hours. After that went to the local pool hall, no liquor, all ages, GCI's sixteen of em. I won twenty four dollars in 1964....and I was transformed.
 
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Rumor has it that when I was young my grandmother used to sit me on top of their pool table when she would take care of me and I would roll the balls around. I don't recall any of this but that is what multiple family members have told me. I actively started playing pool when I moved from Texas to Connecticut in high school.
 
During my high school years I went to a bowling alley—not to bowl but to play pool with a friend who was a high school drop-out.
It was a bar table with a HEAVY cue ball. Eventually we found a pool room and I was hooked.

Not sure what happened to my friend.
 
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I just began playing two years ago at age 58. I was walking past the billiards room at our community recreation center when a couple of my fishing buddies said "hey, come in here and play some pool."

What hooked me on the game was:

1) the challenge of improving and learning. The thrill of making a tough shot and getting position too.

2) the physics and geometry

3) the competition

4) the fact that pool can be played year-round and for many more years to come (fishing is great but I'm not an ice-fisherman -- hate the cold; and I've gotten a little too old for basketball).
 
One of my first recollection is with my cousin who always hated me tagging along, but my Uncle would make him bring me. The pool hall is where we ended up several times, I must of been about nine at the time. He taught me some basics and such, but he did it left handed, since he was left handed, and now I shoot pool lefty also! I really got hooked a couple of years later at my friends clubhouse, beat most people there then went out to find a proper billiard hall....and instantly fell in love with the sport.
 
Bowler

I was 13, and an avid Bowler. The Bowling alley was below a small group of retail stores. Every Saturday morning I would trudge down those stairs with my 15 lb. Crown Jewel ball. One Saturday in early December 1963 as I trudged up those stairs I decided to checkout the new Pool Room everyone was talking about, over the Bowling Alley.The name of the place was Flynn's. I was a nervous wreck , you had to go thru two doors to get in , I had no idea what to expect.The place was packed with kids that looked like extra's in a Dead End Kids movie.Naturally I drew a lot of attention standing there in my white vinyl coat that matched my bowling bag. The first thing I noticed was the sound of all the balls clicking,then the high ceiling with a skylight that let the Sun shine down making the balls look like jewels rolling around on the tables.I was brought out of my trance my a voice loudly telling me " If you want a table you have to sign the waiting list " It was the owner a Burl Ives looking guy with a two inch cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth. I never said a word I just shook my head no and tried to look invisible as I walked out.My first thought when I got outside was " that is where I want to be "
The following Monday after school I went there with a friend and I was hooked.
Three years later me and my buddy Charlie would stare at the two piece cues for sale behind the counter. I remember they had nylon wraps, the one I wanted was emerald green., Charlie wanted one with a royal blue nylon wrap.Since we did not have the cash , we took 6 Cherry bombs and put them into lit cigarettes and planted them one busy evening all around the room.We thought we could cause a diversion and when everyone was distracted steal our cues.Once the first one blew up all the tough guys freaked out and started stampeding to the front as the other five stared going off it was complete panick . Everyone bottle necked by the two front doors , kids pushed their hands thru the doors panes of glass.Charlie and I made it outside with no cues.A friends uncle just released from prison was getting blamed for it.We confessed and were banned from Flynn's for life.The real stupidity of it was even had we been successful we would have had no place to play with those cues, since Flynn's was the only place that allowed under age kids to play.
 
It was 1957--my Uncle was a State Police Captian and was shot to death by one of the criminals that he had brought in--two of my other Uncles that had been backed by him and owned a pool room in Stuart Virginia during those years. One of My Uncles had one of the tables moved to the Upstairs rooms at his house after my other Uncle's passing, and at the young age of 5, I started to learn how to run out.
Move ahead a few years from that--My family had moved from the outskirts of the small community of which I lived to the small town which I would call home for the rest of my life. I had experenced Death at that early age with the passing of my Uncle,, but what would come afterwards almost broke me, and made a different path for the years to come.
In 1963 I witnessed the via the media, the assassination of JFK. I was 11 years old when that one came down....
I had just started going into the poolroom in my small town, and my farther was giving me complete hell for being there. He was a pillow of the community--owned a small company and I couldn't be around pool.
A few months afterwards ,my Dad died from a heart attack in Jan 13th 1964--I was 12,, I went back into the room where, I was told not to go ,afterwards--by the time I was 14 I was makeing over 200 bucks a week and thought I was getting good, there were people brought in unknowing to me to gamble and I was staked without even any idea of what was going on and I was taking down these people one after another.
I had something with school though,,I made good grades and didn't have to study to get them--got through 2 years of College in the early 70's--but I still remembered the first day I ever walked into a room and rolled a ball down the Felt--I heard that ball Roll as much as I saw it roll, then when I shot the cueball I heard the balls roll and felt them roll as well.
After 2 years of college I had enough--I went back home--I had an old 4'12 X 9 Brunswick in the Garage that had come out of my Uncles Room from years ago...At the time I was one of the best players in the state of Va--I practiced for 2 years --worked hard--drill after drill and when I came out--I didn't miss nothing--
This is when I met Tim Daniels--he came through from Ohio and was trying to take me off and saw that wasn't going to happen, and invited me to go on the road..It was the height of the Carter Deperission--no one had work--so I said Hell yes--Tim and I traveled all over the country together--made money --and spent it just as easy--those were some good times.
I move to Greensboro Nc and camped out ther for awhile and then start moving about the country--in Greensboro is where I met Billy Johnson and Bill( Irvin) Lawson--my game went up a couple of notches after these two gents were introduced to me..They tought me to trap people--along with beating them--I can't play a lic today--but at one time I was the best damn player in the whole State Of Virginia--and I can still run 100 balls at the tender age of 61- All of the above is no brag--it's what happened--and there is alot that is left out-that's even better--Afterwards about 1981 I resumed my studies at a local College and recieved my Biz Degree and aquiered a job in the Furniture Industry--been there almost 30 years since--I remeber the last time I saw my old freind Billy Johnson though--He told me--I would have made my mark-He didn't want me to leave the game the way I did--I didn't want to live on the road the way it was--sa la vive
Regards All--Hope You Liked The Life Long Story --it happened
 
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When I was ten or so my parents got a divorce and my dad bought a eight foot and put it in the garage. I soon feel in love. My dad's friends would always be over and we would play three ball for like a dollar or so a game. I used to even get my dad to drop me off at the bowling alley so I could go play. But that all stopped when my dad got re married. I stopped playing till I was eighteen when my brother called me out to go play with him and his friends at an old pool hall. I went and feel in love once again. It was about this time I used some of my graduation money to by a 5280 and it has been all up hill from there.
 
i was abducted by Gypsys when I was a child and forced to play pool and cards for money.
My Gypsy name was Boosty {ironic that someone else came along and made my name a legend!}. Also SS insiders will recognise my true {best game}.
Leave the stiffs asleep!
We played a game called Hook Em, Crook Em and it was not so much about pocketing balls as remembering all the rules.
If you remembered a rule and the other person didn't it could be a huge advantage.
Later on, I collected the debts from their gambling ventures and I became "book collector"
That's the way it happened as far as I can remember.
 
Have posted it before but you asked =)

Welcome to Outsville... Population: YOU


I've always wondered if Outsville exists outside of East Tennessee... 20 some odd years ago in Jokers pool-hall in Oak Ridge TN I first heard the term....

We had all sorts of characters come thru the doors back then... Corbin Nick, Jellico Billy, Lotsa Poppa, Mountain Man, Black Larry, Old Larry, Earl "Red" Frye and many many more.....

It was the late 80s/early 90s and "The Color of Money"'s effects were in play. We had a full room on the week ends and I could get 40-50 players out every Thursday for our handicapped tournaments...

Jokers was where I learned the game... I had been playing for years before I ended up living in my Grandmother's basement in Oak Ridge while I went to college...

When I was a kid Gordon's pool hall had been across the street from my dad's garage and for the 5 bucks a week my dad gave him Gordon would open a bar table every day after school and let me play until my mom picked me up after she got off work....

Shortly after that I got my wheels and those wheels stayed parked in front of the the family rec every night... I learned to play 8ball on bar tables.. There were no real players so everything I learned I had to learn the hard way.... Good old trial and error... I was a neophyte so most of the times I gambled I was lucky enough that young eyes made the difference....

My senior year of high school my dad showed up to the game room and actually got into a ring game that was too rich for my blood... He was a decent player and I figured we would split... After several hours he ended up busting it.. I think that likely amounted to maybe 150 bucks..

As we walked out Dad peeled off $33 bucks... Apparently he had kept more track of how much I had lost than anything.. As he handed it to me he said something that I can still hear "I don't ever want you to gamble again until you know what you are doing"... Growing up around round tracks and drag strips made what he was saying all the more clear... You never took your car to the track when it was missing... You either got it tuned right or you stayed on the porch......

So I stayed on the porch and graduated a few months later... That's when I moved to Oak Ridge... I needed a job and knew about Jokers but had only been in there as a kid to play video games when I stayed at my grandparents.. We had a table in the basement at their house so I had never even thought about hitting a ball in Jokers... Heck they used to run you out just for sitting around and watching the players match up....

The owner liked the fact that I was from out of town and didn't know I had already contracted the "disease" so he gave me a job... I was somewhere I could finally learn about what I "was doing"... I could play all day for free on the front table for good money and I got to watch the players ply their trade....

I am still understanding some of the lessons I learned there from the old timers and players... CJ's touch of inside was a gem I learned 20 years earlier... Cueball squirt was called topple and Back hand english was called swerve.. You didn't want to penetrate the cueball's crust was the way it was explained to me LOL...

But back to Outsville's origination... I don't recall the names of the players... I don't recall what they were playing for.... But I recall at a pivotal point one of the players broke the balls as good as you could break them on the old slow Charles House cloth and had zero chance of not being able to run out... At that point one of the rail-birds chirped up with "that's a road-map" to which the player replied.. "No Son... That's Outsville"

From then on anytime anytime I broke em like that you could hear me clear across the room... "Outsville!!"

As I progressed I started to call the zone itself "Outsville" and there was nothing better in the world than when you got to live there for extended periods as the only resident... my new battle cry became "Outsville... Population ME!!!"

Since I spent years of my life searching for Outsville and not finding it more often than I did.... there was nothing else I could name my website... My sword and shield are rusty and there is grey in my beard and hair... Just starting mind you but it's there....

Maybe it's not the same Outsville I used to look for but then again it keeps me connected to a game that has had me hooked for 32 years now....

I'd love to hear from anyone out there that has heard of Outsville before and where they heard it........

Chris
 
In a way,it's been a part of my life since I was a teenager.

I played recreationally in my teens,had a cue,and knew who Mosconi was,and was exposed to the 80's pros thanks to a couple tournaments at Starcher's in Akron. Up until I went to those tournaments in 1985,I really thought my dad was the best player in the world.

Back then,it was just something to do during off time in football and keeping my hand wrapped around a guitar neck,getting laid,etc.

I found out the hard way that no amount of desire can get you into the NFL when you are just a 5' 8" receiver/corner with good hands and slightly above average speed,so music became my primary focus other than women.

I had no real talent as a guitar player,but with dedication and hard work,I got myself to the point where almost NOTHING in the 80's metal catalog wasn't doable.

I decided to go to a community college to learn theory after high school,and ideally get myself a job as a studio guitarist.

Shortly before I would have graduated,carpal tunnel popped up.

All of a sudden,I had 40-50 hours a week I had to fill with some kind of activity. The medical technology in the early 90's left me with basically 2 options,put the guitar down for a 6 months to a year,or have surgery which would have left me with a 1" wide scar from my wrist to my elbow.

At this point,I could make balls,and had a basic idea of what the cue ball would do,but still had never broke and ran out a rack when it mattered.

I started playing more and more,and within a few months,I had made enough gambling I ordered my Schon from North Coast Amusements in Dec 1990,and got it 362 days later.

I was a lifer by then. Tommy D.
 
Vegh's

Tommy-D said:
In a way,it's been a part of my life since I was a teenager.

I played recreationally in my teens,had a cue,and knew who Mosconi was,and was exposed to the 80's pros thanks to a couple tournaments at Starcher's in Akron. Up until I went to those tournaments in 1985,I really thought my dad was the best player in the world.

Back then,it was just something to do during off time in football and keeping my hand wrapped around a guitar neck,getting laid,etc.

I found out the hard way that no amount of desire can get you into the NFL when you are just a 5' 8" receiver/corner with good hands and slightly above average speed,so music became my primary focus other than women.

I had no real talent as a guitar player,but with dedication and hard work,I got myself to the point where almost NOTHING in the 80's metal catalog wasn't doable.

I decided to go to a community college to learn theory after high school,and ideally get myself a job as a studio guitarist.

Shortly before I would have graduated,carpal tunnel popped up.

All of a sudden,I had 40-50 hours a week I had to fill with some kind of activity. The medical technology in the early 90's left me with basically 2 options,put the guitar down for a 6 months to a year,or have surgery which would have left me with a 1" wide scar from my wrist to my elbow.

At this point,I could make balls,and had a basic idea of what the cue ball would do,but still had never broke and ran out a rack when it mattered.

I started playing more and more,and within a few months,I had made enough gambling I ordered my Schon from North Coast Amusements in Dec 1990,and got it 362 days later.

I was a lifer by then. Tommy D.
Click to expand...

Did you order it from Tommy Vegh or Scott ? I was always in and out of there.
 
When I was just a little kid growing up in Chicago my sister and I would tag along with my dad & older brother when they went to Bensingers on Clark and they would let us play a little, then in 73 we moved to Tampa, FL and my mom had Bowling league on Wednesday nights, so I would tag along, I was not any good at bowling, so I started hanging out in the pool room at the alley, and we had a rec room at the apartment complex we live in that had a table, so I started playing all the time, I convinced the complex manager to let me hold a pool tournament, so I talked to the guys down at Robertsons billiard supply, where I used to go to get tips and chalk and stuff for the rec room, and they sent me over to Bakers, just across the street, and told me to ask for “WD” Bill Stigall, he showed me how to make the elimination chart and showed me a few trick shots to entertain everyone with, then I made up fliers and had a great turnout, I made the elimination chart on the back of a Jimmy Carter for president poster board LOL.

After that during summer vacation, I would ride downtown with my mom on her way to work and she would drop me off at Bakers and I would play all day until she came to pick me on the way home.
 
I've posted this story before, but I always come back to it when someone ask the question:
---------------------

I think I was 9 or 10. I went with my Dad to pick up my sister at the
Masonic Temple. She was waiting at the Temple in a rec. room playing 8-ball on this 9' table. I'd never really played before but was fascinated by the click of the balls. Neither my sister nor her friend had a clue as to what they were doing, but occasionally, one of them would catch a ball just right. The ball would hit the leather pocket with that wonderful *thwap* sound.

My sister let my father and me play a bit before we went home. For a guy who never plays, my dad has some obvious natural talent. My father only knew one game: rotation. We are Filipino after all. So that was the first game that I knew as far as rules go.


In that first magical rack, I couldn't make a straight shot to save my life. I was able to make all of two balls: a bank on the 5, and a kick on the 13. My father apparently feeling no need to praise his young son on these accomplishments rewarded me with "lucky shot" on each.


And such was the spark that lit my burning desire. I never wanted to hear him tell me "lucky shot" again. Gee, dad. Thanks.

Freddie <~~~ lucky
 
One of my first jobs, worked at a fast food place.
Everyone there except management (actually, some of the management too) was basically a kid.
They were cool though, inviting me out to their regular hangout... the local pool room (now closed).

Played for fun on the barbox and found I had a knack for it.
Decades later and I still enjoy it.

What I love about it is, at first it seems to require impossible aim and control.
"I have to hit a 3mm patch from 7-9 feet away? Seriously?"
...yet you see dozens of guys come into the pool room who can do it, so you know it's possible.
And eventually you're the guy wowing the newbie who thinks what you're doing is impossible.
 
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