I see her listing has a link to a brief New Yorker article from Sept. 7, 1981 - she's mentioned in the last two paragraphs. Also some fun stuff in there for the historians.
Tournament
THE Professional Pool Players Association held its sixth annual World Open Pocket Billiard Championship recently in the Grand Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel, and we went over one afternoon to take a look. The Grand Ballroom is a glittery sort of place (rust-and-gold carpets, mirrored sconces), with a balcony run- ning around three of its sides. On the ballroom's floor were five pool tables, each of which measured nine feet by four and a half feet and had a green felt surface, and each of which was occupied by two players in formal dress. White-gloved referees stood nearby, observing shots and calling out scores. Seated around the sides of the room and on the balcony were about hundred and fifty spectators, many of whom murmured things like "Nice shot" from time to time, and most of whom indulged in a restrained sort of applause - it reminded us of the stands at Wimbledon - whenever an especially skillful shot was made.
In a chair on the sidelines sat a blond, mustached young man named Arnd Bollhardt, who is a director of the Professional Pool Players Association, or P.P.P.A. We asked him to tell us something about the tournament.
"We have ninety-three entrants this year," Bollhardt said. "Sixty-four are in the men's division, thirteen are in the women's division, and sixteen are in the junior division, which includes people seventeen and under. We have players from Canada, Sweden, and West Germany, as well as from the United States. The P.P.P.A. was formed six years ago, after a lot of the good players-for a number of reasons -broke away from the Billiard Congress of America, or B.C.A., which until then had been the main national organization. Pocket billiards-pool- is definitely growing. In fact, more than thirty-one million Americans now play the game. When we first got organized, of course, we realized that there was a certain stigma attached to the game-the image of the old-time pool hall-and we're doing what we can to counter that image. We think we're making real progress. There's been a lot of pool on television lately-championship matches, and play-offs between well-known players like Minnesota Fats and Willie Mosconi. And Mayor Koch has proclaimed this Billiard Week in New York City. If you stay around, you're sure to see some of the world's top players. In fact, there's Steve Mizerak over there." Mizerak, who is currently featured in a series of beer commercials on television, was sitting at one end of the ballroom, and we went over to say hello. He is a heavyset, sunny-looking man who has won the B.C.A. United States Open four consecutive times.
"The sport is blossoming into something big," Mizerak told us when we had taken a chair next to his. "What you'll see being played at this tournament is fourteen-point-one continuous pool, or straight pool, which is the definitive game as far as players are concerned. As a spectator sport, though, pool attracts a lot more attention when we do trick shots, or when we stick to the more colorful variations of the game, such as Eight Ball or Nine Ball."
"Steve Mizerak," said a voice. "I watched you play in Perth Amboy, when you were only four. You were good even then."
We looked up and saw a short man with keen brown eyes and a fringe of white hair framing a rubbery-looking, amiable face. He turned out to be Carl
Zingale, of New Rochelle, who is known in the world of pool as Cue Ball Kelly. We asked him to tell us more about himself.
"I'm eighty-six, and I've been active in the sport of pool for seventy-five years," Cue Ball Kelly said. "I've played in ten thousand poolrooms, and I've refereed ten thousand games. I've taught the great ones, and I've refereed for every champion that ever lived since 1915. I've refereed for Andrew Ponzi, Erwin Rudolph, Ralph Greenleaf, Cowboy Weston, Jimmy Caras, Wimpy Lassiter, Willie Mosconi, Irving Crane. They're all my boys-I've known them all. In the years before the First World War, I used to play with W. C. Fields, over at McGirr's, on Eighth Avenue. Fields was good. He was very good. I played with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, too. They weren't good pool players, but they were wonderful guys." A teen-age boy in a white T-shirt strolled by and said, "How ya doin', Cue Ball"
"Wonderful," said Cue Ball Kelly. Later, in a lounge area on the hotel's mezzanine, we spoke with Stephanie Kawaoka, an entrant in the women's division. She is a striking- looking young woman with long dark hair, and she was wearing a pleated white dress with a floral pattern, high- heeled white sandals, and two gold neck chains. "There are definitely more women getting into this sport," she told us. "In fact, I'm convinced that in a few years the women's division will really go places. I started playing at the collegiate level, in California, and in 1976 I got as far as the national intercollegiate championships. I have my own table, which sits in my living room, in San Luis Obispo, California. That table is a classic in itself. It was built in 1962, and its top is made of Pennsylvania blue slate."
We asked Miss Kawaoka whether she practiced much, "For a while, I didn't practice at all," she said. "But now I'm taking the game more seriously. I'm putting in up to twelve hours a day."
