It's Over (Blessedly) - Mosconi Cup Final Day

lfigueroa said:
And so the fat lady sings. In fact, starting off at a 2-8 deficit, everyone had been pretty much listening to her warming up since Tuesday and were sending in song requests.

Wednesday morning, on the way to the arena, I stop at the Mirage coffee shop and join Bob Jewett for breakfast. We talk of our favorite arias, the coming concert, and wonder aloud what our tickets for Thursday's scheduled Mosconi Cup might bring on eBay. We decide: not much.

In the arena, rIght out of the gate things continue their slide into perdition, with Earl and Hatch losing 3-6.

On the next Ring of Hell was Earl in full melt down mode against Karl Boyles. Earl is chittering away to Karl, the crowd, and to his own inner demons. Referee, Ken Shuman, admonishes Earl that he's had enough.

Then at one point, after a particularly poor shot, Earl lashes out and instantaneous does grievous injury to the seven foot Zulu spear he uses as a cue.

But wait... it gets better.

On his next turn at the table the funniest moment of the MC occurs. Earl gets down on his shot and suddenly stands up. He then brings his weapon up to his eye and sights down the length of the cue. Earl's cue whacking has put a serious swarp into his cue and now he must put the butt of the cue onto the floor and try and bend the shaft as close to straight as his remaining time on the shot clock will allow. Everyone in the crowd cannot believe what they are seeing center court and the reactions are basically laughter, disbelief, and a general "I've seen it all now." But, straight spear or not, Boyles continues the beatings with a 4-6 win. And then finally it was Niels and Mika administering the coup de grâce to team Hatch and Morris, another 4-6.

Man. They beat us like a rented mule.

The awarding of the actual Cup was painful to watch. To me, the most impressive part was how the majority of the predominantly American crowd stayed to watch and applaud the European team in their victory. When it came time for Barry Hearn to hang the second place medals around the neck of each of the Americans, I think everyone felt uncomfortable but blessedly the medals are all accepted with due restraint.

And so it is over. I wander over to Best Billiards and am surprised to find Pilot Jim there practicing, so we play some 1pocket for a few hours. Then I head to dinner and eventually follow the trail of Pink Lady's posts to the Revolution bar in the Mirage, where the Euros have assembled and are in full bull goose looney party mode. The whole team is there with assorted wives, girlfriends, and buddies. Michaela is there as is Angel, Pink Lady, and KoolKat. Hatch comes in and is warmly embraced by his opponents while they all bellow, "Uuuuuuuuuroppppppp!" Karen Corr greets me saying I look familiar and I remind her of how on a rainy night at the Executive West a group of us had pig piled into a shuttle bus and she was forced to almost sit in my lap. Darren Appleton is in a "happy" space. We had played a match in the US Open One Pocket a couple of years ago and he comes up to me, smiling from ear to ear, and semi-affectionately rubs his hand all over the right side of my face and asks, "How you doing'?" And I reply, "Doing good, Darren. You played great." And he smiles even more broadly and whispers, "We got 'lucky.'" And I reply, "Some of us know better than that."

Angel, KoolKat, and I start talking and she mentions her film project. The next thing I know Angel has invited us up to the 20th floor of the Mirage for a private screening of her 10 minute documentary, "Chasing Wincardona" that she has submitted to the Sundance Film Festival. She brings her laptop out to the foyer on that floor of the hotel and we watch and the film is great. But then she also shows us a short teaser for "Raising the Hustler" a film she's been working on for seven years based upon 600 hours of footage she's shot at pool events all over the country. One of the sad footnotes to her project is that over 30 of the players she's filmed and interviewed have passed since she started the project. The film looks splendid and you can tell it is a labor of love. I wish her every success with it.

We return to the party and there is more drinking, kisses, hugs, and photos and I mange to hang for a while longer until the booze, time change, and lack of sleep get the better of me. I head to my room and, as the late, great Grady "Professor" Mathews would have signed off: And so this Mosconi Cup is another piece of pocket billiards history.

Thank God.

Lou Figueroa
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As always Lou, very nice report!

Karen is a very nice Lady and very attractive in her liberal style!
 
lfigueroa said:
JAM, thank you for your supportive and appreciative posts. I enjoy writing but these reports do take time and strain my aging, failing wetware. So thanks again to you.

Lou Figueroa
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I totally empathize. I used to provide trip reports on this forum many moons ago. This was back in a day when there were connection issues, severe connection issues.

It almost reminds me of the time when I first posted on RSB using a dial-up modem. I'd read a post and want to reply with immediate gratification, yet my post would not show up until the next day sometimes. Meanwhile, the rest of the world, like you, were on high-speed connections, and you could reply instantaneously. It was quite frustrating that I had to wait before I could address the colorful subject matters during that time. :grin-square:

What I enjoy most about your posts, written in plain English without slang/acronyms, is I can read them with ease and not wonder what in the hell did you write. :o

These days, my 41-year-old daughter included, many people write with the same method as they do when texting. Because of this practice, some grown adults don't know how to spell. Maybe they don't care about how they look in print. It's a growing trend which for somebody like me in my industry is alarming, to say the least. :(

There was a HUGE conference recently about education in our country that stated the current generation of our children don't have the reading and writing skills needed to be successful due to this current trend of text-writing. In fact, when I went to school, we did our math by hand on a piece of paper. Today, the kids use a calculator. They have no idea how to figure out that 4 times 9 equals 36 on paper. They let the calculator do the work. :eek:

I enjoy a good pool read, and you never fail to provide a detailed comprehensive report when you're on the road. Bravo! Can't wait to read the DCC updates. I hope this year is a success. :)
 
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JAM said:
I totally empathize. I used to provide trip reports on this forum many moons ago. This was back in a day when there were connection issues, severe connection issues.

It almost reminds me of the time when I first posted on RSB using a dial-up modem. I'd read a post and want to reply with immediate gratification, yet my post would not show up until the next day sometimes. Meanwhile, the rest of the world, like you, were on high-speed connections, and you could reply instantaneously. It was quite frustrating that I had to wait before I could address the colorful subject matters during that time. :grin-square:

What I enjoy most about your posts, written in plain English without slang/acronyms, is I can read them with ease and not wonder what in the hell did you write. :o

These days, my 41-year-old daughter included, many people write with the same method as they do when texting. Because of this practice, some grown adults don't know how to spell. Maybe they don't care about how they look in print. It's a growing trend which for somebody like me in my industry is alarming, to say the least. :(

There was a HUGE conference recently about education in our country that stated the current generation of our children don't have the reading and writing skills needed to be successful due to this current trend of text-writing. In fact, when I went to school, we did our math by hand on a piece of paper. Today, the kids use a calculator. They have no idea how to figure out that 4 times 9 equals 36 on paper. They let the calculator do the work. :eek:

I enjoy a good pool read, and you never fail to provide a detailed comprehensive report when you're on the road. Bravo! Can't wait to read the DCC updates. I hope this year is a success. :)
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lol. Colorful indeed.

Louisville, here we come.

Lou Figueroa
 
I'm trying to come up with a different way of saying "thanks for sharing your experience with us"...because every trip report you write here is so very good.

And it is really appreciated. Thanks for taking the time.

<-------still envious of your pool adventures :p
 
justadub said:
I'm trying to come up with a different way of saying "thanks for sharing your experience with us"...because every trip report you write here is so very good.

And it is really appreciated. Thanks for taking the time.

<-------still envious of your pool adventures :p
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I'm with you....how many different ways can you thank a guy for a trip report???

I need more pool adventures in my own life, but until then there's always Lou.

Thanks Lou.
 
lfigueroa said:
Wait a minute. Are you not the same guy who just wrote me, wait a minute, I want to get this right...

"I'm done with the animosity. It's not worth it."

Lou Figueroa
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Yep, doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading the threads though.
 
justadub said:
I'm trying to come up with a different way of saying "thanks for sharing your experience with us"...because every trip report you write here is so very good.

And it is really appreciated. Thanks for taking the time.

<-------still envious of your pool adventures :p
Click to expand...


Thank you, dub.

Lou Figueroa
 
BasementDweller said:
I'm with you....how many different ways can you thank a guy for a trip report???

I need more pool adventures in my own life, but until then there's always Lou.

Thanks Lou.
Click to expand...


lol, sounds like a line Bogart would have said. Thanks, BD.

Lou Figueroa
 
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