Well, I wasn't really trying to draw a direct line between Mosconi's run and JS'.
I was really talking about how, in general, most 14.1 players feel about the game and its tenets. But OK, let's talk about Mosconi.
Mosconi was a 15 time world champion. He played in an era during which the players wore tuxedos and 14.1 was held in such high regard that tournament results made the front page of newspapers. And in that milieu, the rules of the game were considered the rules, with referees to call all fouls. IOWs, Mosconi spent a career abiding by a strict code of conduct, behavior, and play. Fouls were not something to be committed or ignored.
There are several of us here that saw Mosconi play, albeit in an exhibition, and I'll go out on a limb and say that to a man they will all agree with the following: Every time I saw Mosconi he would always run at least 100. He would always be dressed in coat and tie. When shooting over a ball or using a mechanical bridge he always took care to not foul. When reaching out over the table, he would always button his jacket to avoid fouling any balls. I never saw Mosconin pick up the CB during a run. And, he never had the balls cleaned (either by hand, much less in a ball polisher), during a run. And on the night he ran the 526 he had a referee (and a racker) watching. He also had an audience that, given the time frame, was probably knowledgeable about 14.1 and it's traditions. Lastly, Mosconi was representing the Brunswick Corporation and knew he had to represent the game at the highest of standards in his play and conduct.
So in my book, Mosconi gets the benefit of the doubt when it comes to those issues.
Now, I have also watched many of JS' runs, during some of which he has fouled, picked up the CB, and put the balls in a ball polisher mid-run. There is also the issue of how he went about this whole thing, going at it for months at a time rather than walking into a strange pool room and doing it on a single attempt in front of a paying audience, but I digress.
In my mind, the bottomline is: JS does not get the benefit of the doubt and we gotta go to the tape.
Lou Figueroa