Here's one of the great reads on AZ Billiards. The posts span a nearly three year time period too. Basically, he's an unheralded legend.
http://forums2.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=86645
I'm going to make this a little easier - here are the two best posts on Jack Hines:
First Post from TomGearHart:
I have many funny stories to tell about Jack Hynes, but this is one of the funniest:
Jack Hynes was playing in Toledo's Glass City Open back in the mid eighties where he was playing real good and still in the winner's bracket. This was great news for me because me and two other locals had put Jack into the tournament and we thought we were going to make some money on our investment. The bookies at the event had Jack pegged to place in the top 10 and were taking bets from the spectators. Jack got five backers to lay down a $1,000 each that he would finish in the top three. The deal was they would split the winnings 60/40 with Jack getting 40.
Things were looking pretty good for Jack until a pretty little thing showed up to cheer him on in a match where he waxed a local unknown 11-0. She was about 19-years old, 5 foot 4 inches tall, long black hair, full pouty lips, and a beautiful face with a 100 watt smile. Jack never had a chance.
Consequently, Jack never showed up for his next two matches and was forfeited out of the tournament. The five backers, each of whom put up $1,000, were looking for Jack with murder in their eyes and vowed that Jack would never dump anyone again. In fact, because it was known that I helped stake Jack into the tournament, one of the backers thought I knew where he was hiding with the girl and brandished a small gun at me. WHOA!
Jack was never found and I didn't see him again until 1992. I sold my Toledo area APA franchise and bought the APA franchise in Louisville, Kentucky. On my first night out visiting area host locations, I stopped into a bar called the Hilltop and was amazed to see Jack Hynes, way in the back of the bar,
with a pair over bib overhalls on, chewing a wad of chaw, and hustling abouta crowd of about 30 locals for $2.00 a game 8-ball! The barmaid said she couldn't believe a guy so drunk, talking so stupid, could be as lucky as he was shooting pool. She said he won over 75 games of 8-ball and just barely won every time with a luck shot! Heh, heh...little did she know!
After no one would play this lucky sod buster anymore he bet about 20 people, to the tune of $5.00 apiece(with his girlfriend holding the money), that he could jump the cueball over the 8-ball and onto the next table and land it two hops into a beer case that was on the floor! Now THAT had everyone's attention! Jack's girlfriend couldn't take peoples money fast enough as Jack takes a house cue, raises the butt end vertical to his chin, takes about 5 strokes with the stick and then with grim determination... BLAM!, hits it up over the 8-ball onto the other table, the cue ball hops two long hops, flys off the table lands dead center into the beer case!
There was absolute dead silence as everyone witnessing that shot not only just witnessed the best shot they had ever seen in their life, but knew that this so-called country bumkin they'd lost all their $2.00's to had been hustling them all afternoon and they were pissed.
During the commotion, I saw Jack go into the men's room and I'll be damned if he ever came back out. There was a little window in the bathrom but it was too small for him to get out of and when the crowd tried to find the girlfriend who was holding the cash, she was gone, too!
To this day, I don't know what happened to Jack or the girl with the cash, but I know I had just witnessed something spectacular. I know they still talk about that day like he was ghost from another dimension.
Tom Gearhart
2nd Post - Originally Posted by tomgearhart
Another funny story about Jack Hynes is:
Mid eighties: After living in different parts of the country, Jack comes back to Toledo to get a REAL job because he is tired of the "road life", the hustlin', the drugs, the cons, and people chasing him for the "dumps" he perpetrated.
His "REAL" job he found was as a pizza driver for Marco's Pizza, a local company here in Toledo. He had the red Marco's t-shirt, the red Marco's hat, and the red Marco's red apron with the two pockets to keep the cash in, and a cute company owned red Ford Pinto painted red with a flashing Marco's sign on the roof.
His first night on the job had Jack delivering his first two pizzas to a college dorm with the pies costing the college kids $19.85. When they answered the door, they handed Jack a $20 and told him to keep the change.
The second pizza run of the night had Jack delivering an extra large pizza loaded with everything costing $17 to a couple of teenagers. There were no lights on in the house but when Jack knocked on the door anyway, the kid that answered took the pizza and said he'd be right back with the money. The kid went out the back door of the abandoned house and scooted with the pizza. Jack had to pay back the $17 to Marco's for the stolen Pizza.
Jack's third and final run delivering pizzas had Jack delivering five pies to a poker game ten blocks from the pizza joint. Jack climbed up on the porch and rang the doorbell. When the door opened, the guy looked at Jack and did a double-take, Jack looked at the guy and did a double-take, and Jack looked at two of the guys sitting at the poker table, the two guys at the table looked at Jack, and they all realized at the same time where they knew each other from. These were three of the five guys Jack convinced to put up $1,000 each at the Glass City Open (see one of my posts in this thread) and then never showed up to play his matches and was forfeited out of it making each of these guys a $1,000 loser. They were looking at Jack with murder, and glee, in their eyes!
Jack threw the pies at the poker table and ran out the door, jumped off the porch with the three guys in hot pursuit. Jack was pretty skinny back then and was pretty fleet of foot. These overweight, pizza eating, poker players had no chance of catching Jack. Jack zoomed right past the red Marco's pizza car in the driveway with the pizza roof light burning brightly and ran a 1/2 mile to the bar where I was at. He looked like s**t, his shoes and pant legs were caked with mud, and his red shirt and apron were in tatters from running through a swamp eluding his pissed off pursuers. After telling us the story, I asked Jack if he learned a lesson here. He said, "You bet! I'll never deliver f***ing pizzas again! Something about hot pizzas makes people cheap, makes them into thieves, and makes people who eat pizzas while playing poker into raving lunatics!"
To the best of my knowledge, he not only never delivered pizzas again, he never ate another one, either!
That Pizza delivery/ poker player story is one of the funniest damn stories I've ever heard.
Chris
