I wish I could go back to the 60s when I was a teenager and slap my self upside my head real hard and tell myself to put more time into golf instead of pool.
If you had a pool time machine...
- Thread starter Tommy-D
- Start date
Oh noooo, it happened to me like that. My cabinet in the bathroom started to fill up with makeup and then it was all over.
I would go back to June of 1957. My first visit to a pool hall (two tables, in a room behind a bar). My first game of pool. My first cigarette. My first beer. I was twelve years old and hanging with adults (old guys, like thirty or forty
) who treated me almost as an equal - not as a child. Frankie Damn, Jimmy Too-Short, and other great guys. The best three months of my childhood.
) who treated me almost as an equal - not as a child. Frankie Damn, Jimmy Too-Short, and other great guys. The best three months of my childhood.
I got lucky by getting into pool in the 60's. I caught the tail end of some great careers - Lassiter, Worst, I. Crane, Puckett, Balsis, Taylor and Mosconi. They could all still play when I was a kid, and I sat there wide eyed at Johnston City and the Stardust. 7/11 was in it's heyday when I went their in the 60's. What a poolroom full of great players.
The young champions back then were Ronnie, Kelly, Jersey Red. Cornbread, Joey Spaeth, Shorty, Ervolino, Richie Ambrose and NY Blackie. The up and coming stars included Mizerak, Rempe, Hall, Margo, Incardona, Mataya, Cook, Marino and Florence. There were so many great players during that time, because pool was a big deal in the 60's. Every neighborhood had a family style poolroom with twenty or more tables. It was easy to find a game, you had so many choices.
I don't know what I liked more - Hanging out in the back rooms at the tournaments and listening to the hilarious conversation and watching great play or just wandering into a strange poolroom and making a game myself. Back then I had confidence in my ability and loved to take on the local champs. It was always a challenge to get up there and do my thing. I was proud of my ability back then. It was about the only thing I was good at.
I tried to be a jock in high school, but at 5'7" and 145 pounds, it was hard to compete with the bigger guys. I did get my letter at tennis, but pool was the first game I ever played where size didn't matter. And it was by far the toughest game to master. I guess I'd like to go back to a day when I felt like I could really play. For a few years there, I was a player. No more, sad to say.
The young champions back then were Ronnie, Kelly, Jersey Red. Cornbread, Joey Spaeth, Shorty, Ervolino, Richie Ambrose and NY Blackie. The up and coming stars included Mizerak, Rempe, Hall, Margo, Incardona, Mataya, Cook, Marino and Florence. There were so many great players during that time, because pool was a big deal in the 60's. Every neighborhood had a family style poolroom with twenty or more tables. It was easy to find a game, you had so many choices.
I don't know what I liked more - Hanging out in the back rooms at the tournaments and listening to the hilarious conversation and watching great play or just wandering into a strange poolroom and making a game myself. Back then I had confidence in my ability and loved to take on the local champs. It was always a challenge to get up there and do my thing. I was proud of my ability back then. It was about the only thing I was good at.
I tried to be a jock in high school, but at 5'7" and 145 pounds, it was hard to compete with the bigger guys. I did get my letter at tennis, but pool was the first game I ever played where size didn't matter. And it was by far the toughest game to master. I guess I'd like to go back to a day when I felt like I could really play. For a few years there, I was a player. No more, sad to say.
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i would have to agree with all but one of those things, and its not that important.
What else I like, To have had proper lessions when I started playing at 14 yrs old in bars(that allowed minors) with proper instruction. Like Landon Shuffet and Shannon had, my dad supported me playing but didnt know how or where or the need for lessions.
Thats what Cotton said too, being born in 45-50 was the perfect time, I'd love to be 59 right now.
Here and now, just for you and me.
I would use the Time Machine to go to the different eras and collect each of the best players of their time and bring them back here and now to settle who was the best player of all time.
Wouldn't it be something to have Mosconi, Strickland, Reyes, Greenleaf, Taylor, Hall, Balsis, Bugs, Allen, Lassiter, Siegel, Rempe, Mizerak and all of the greatest lengends of all time in their prime, with all of them playing their best pool against today's best players to settle the dispute once and for all?
JoeyA
I would use the Time Machine to go to the different eras and collect each of the best players of their time and bring them back here and now to settle who was the best player of all time.
Wouldn't it be something to have Mosconi, Strickland, Reyes, Greenleaf, Taylor, Hall, Balsis, Bugs, Allen, Lassiter, Siegel, Rempe, Mizerak and all of the greatest lengends of all time in their prime, with all of them playing their best pool against today's best players to settle the dispute once and for all?
JoeyA
If I had a pool time machine...I'd make an awful lot of money from the rail. :wink:
My time machine would take me to the future---to watch the stars of today mature and see the changes. Athletes always get better as time goes on. They always have and always will. The stars of yesterday may not be good enough in todays world.
UrbanCowboy
Registered
Back to the post color of money movie late 80s early 90s
When the upscale pool room boom started after The Colof of Money came out, that was a glorious time which probably will never be duplicated.
On another thread someone asked why no one would make a big time pool movie. Because there is no money in it. TCOM made money because it had a critically acclaimed director and big name stars like Newman and Cruise. Nowadays, producers would not even look at a pool movie script.
Back to the time machine; boy, do I miss those days when there was a dynamic energy in the air, when you could go to a great room like Hollywood Billiards or Chalkers, both in San Francisco, and mingle with the hustlers, business men, con men, rail birds, and stake horses.
When the upscale pool room boom started after The Colof of Money came out, that was a glorious time which probably will never be duplicated.
On another thread someone asked why no one would make a big time pool movie. Because there is no money in it. TCOM made money because it had a critically acclaimed director and big name stars like Newman and Cruise. Nowadays, producers would not even look at a pool movie script.
Back to the time machine; boy, do I miss those days when there was a dynamic energy in the air, when you could go to a great room like Hollywood Billiards or Chalkers, both in San Francisco, and mingle with the hustlers, business men, con men, rail birds, and stake horses.