Hi, new to the forum as of today and was wanting to drop in and stay hi and introduce myself. I came up in a home that was run by an old timer that was also a Baptist preacher, so I never laid eyes on a pool table until sneaked into a bar down on Rosedale St in Ft Worth, Tx. Tried my hand at a billiards and snooker table a few times, too. That was back in the early 70's when I would shoot hookie from school to go over to the old hall on Magnolia St on the west side and every now and then I would make my way into POPS & MOMS pool hall in STOP SIX, TX to watch more than anything. Needless to say I did not get good enough to forget about getting a day job. This was all before I met my big brother James "Youngblood" Brown and discovered that he was a professional pool player with a pretty good track record. Have any of you guys run across him at work lately, although he claims he does not play much anymore. Get back with me if you have any stories to tell about him. Thanks
James "Youngblood" Brown
- Thread starter ONTHERAG
- Start date
Was/is this the same Youngblood that was in the Los Angeles area in the last 15-20 years?
He was your big brother and you didn't know he was a pool player? That's strange right there. I've known Texas Blood (as we called him in the ghetto) since we were both kids. He was an extraordinary Bank Pool player, one of the best of his era. Maybe a ball under Bugs or Taylor. He was proud of his youthful looks, never changing much in appearance until he hit age 50.
Blood (or James as some called him) was a damn good hustler. He could lay off and not look too strong, and then turn it up when the bet got right. He made some good scores from time to time, once beating King Kong on a bar table for fifteen grand. I never even knew Youngblood played on bar tables. He rarely played in tournaments, preferring to stay under the radar. In one Dayton tourney with all the top players, he ran second to Jimmy Fusco in the Bank Pool division. I staked him there and we made a couple of grand. He did manage to blow eight hundred trying to give Sizemore 5-4 in Short Rack Banks. I always wondered about that game,
. I last saw him at my pool hall at Hollywood Park five years ago. He bit me for a hundred. What else is new? :thumbup:P.S. The first time we met, he gave me 5-4 in Short Rack and we played for hours and hours at twenty a game (this was the 60's). I was in dead stroke and was running twos, threes and sometimes fours, but I couldn't pull away. He ended up four games winner after many hours of play. We never played again. :wink:
He's in his early 60's now.
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He was your big brother and you didn't know he was a pool player? That's strange right there. I've known Texas Blood (as we called him in the ghetto) since we were both kids. He was an extraordinary Bank Pool player, one of the best of his era. Maybe a ball under Bugs or Taylor. He was proud of his youthful looks, never changing much in appearance until he hit age 50.
Blood (or James as some called him) was a damn good hustler. He could lay off and not look too strong, and then turn it up when the bet got right. He made some good scores from time to time, once beating King Kong on a bar table for fifteen grand. I never even knew Youngblood played on bar tables. He rarely played in tournaments, preferring to stay under the radar. In one Dayton tourney with all the top players, he ran second to Jimmy Fusco in the Bank Pool division. I staked him there and we made a couple of grand. He did manage to blow eight hundred trying to give Sizemore 5-4 in Short Rack Banks. I always wondered about that game,
P.S. The first time we met, he gave me 5-4 in Short Rack and we played for hours and hours at twenty a game (this was the 60's). I was in dead stroke and was running twos, threes and sometimes fours, but I couldn't pull away. He ended up four games winner after many hours of play. We never played again. :wink:
He's in his early 60's now.
So jay i got a crazy question i guess lol. You said you never knew he played on bartables. And im figuring you know a lot about a lot of players. Do you think he did play on bboxes and you just did'nt know it? Or do you think he just adapted to the bbox quick?
I found out later he had been hustling bars in the Bay area for quite a while. He has made Oakland his home for a long time now.
Jay,
At one of your LA Opens, James Brown was playing Jimmy Reid one hole.
He was playing very well ahead but slow. James was getting down, getting back up, walking around, looking and walking around etc...ad infinitum.
Jimmy went to the tournament director (you?) and asked for a clock to be put on him. James started making mistakes and eventually lost to Jimmy.
That was the first time I saw either of them. Those were the best tournaments in the LA area.
I never forgot their names for they were the same as 2 famous singers.
Thanks.
:thumbup:
At one of your LA Opens, James Brown was playing Jimmy Reid one hole.
He was playing very well ahead but slow. James was getting down, getting back up, walking around, looking and walking around etc...ad infinitum.
Jimmy went to the tournament director (you?) and asked for a clock to be put on him. James started making mistakes and eventually lost to Jimmy.
That was the first time I saw either of them. Those were the best tournaments in the LA area.
I never forgot their names for they were the same as 2 famous singers.
Thanks.
:thumbup:
Jay,
At one of your LA Opens, James Brown was playing Jimmy Reid one hole.
He was playing very well ahead but slow. James was getting down, getting back up, walking around, looking and walking around etc...ad infinitum.
Jimmy went to the tournament director (you?) and asked for a clock to be put on him. James started making mistakes and eventually lost to Jimmy.
That was the first time I saw either of them. Those were the best tournaments in the LA area.
I never forgot their names for they were the same as 2 famous singers.
Thanks.
Thank you! That was at the L.A. Open at the Marriott in 1993. We put Youngblood on a 45 second shot clock and he didn't like it. I did let players know before the start of the One Pocket event that we would put them on the clock if the match was taking too long.
Ok thx for the answer. I just figure adaptation is a skill in itself and thought maybe he adjusted quick.
I remember that match well and putting them on the clock was the reason he lost that match. He had complete control of that match when he was playing at his pace. I believe that was the tournament that Mark Tadd dominated.
I went on the road with blood one summer when he was about 19 and we made some good scores up the CA coast with our last stop in SFran where he torched Flip Gene on a 5-10 playing 9 ball and we returned to LA with a nice bankroll. He I and Cecil ran around together for a while at Celebrity Billiards in Hollywood.
Believe it or not - blood was an awesome 9 ball player - and not a great banker or 1 pocket player back then. Cecil was right handed then. Blood's strange style was exactly the same as Jersey Red's, but both he and Red refused to talk about each other
Believe it or not - blood was an awesome 9 ball player - and not a great banker or 1 pocket player back then. Cecil was right handed then. Blood's strange style was exactly the same as Jersey Red's, but both he and Red refused to talk about each other
I'm sorry but I'm having trouble figuring out the "strange style" of Youngblood and Jersey Red. By the way, Blood was right handed and Red was a lefty. I thought Red got down great on the balls and had a solid textbook stance and stroke. I never noticed anything unique about his style, other than his gift of gab. He loved to talk while he was running out on you! James looked a lot different than Red at the table, with a more upright and open stance.
Now I know exactly who you guys are talking about. I think. I ran into him in Texas in the early 90s and played him in a tournament. I think he was running around with Gabby. Then we happened to be practicing next to each other here in the Bay Area and tried to figure out where we knew each other from. We BSed for a couple of hours. He wanted me to play bank pool and I wanted him to play 9 ball. We ended up not playing but he used to show up at bar tournaments around here once in a while. That was 10 years ago. I haven’t been playing much since and haven’t seen him around.
If my memory serves me right, Preacher Red expressed his unsolicited opinion on Blood giving up a ball when the players were negotiating the game. Sizemore threatened to cut The Preachers head off.
As dangerous as Red could be (he always packed!), Sizemore was even more crazy. He slit Carolina's throat from ear to ear (he survived to show off his scars) after a money beef. A few years after the Dayton tourney, Sizemore took off some drug dealers for 60K and they found his body the next day in his car. They followed him, robbed him and killed him.
Sizemore would go anywhere and play anyone and talk shit while robbing them. And he traveled alone most of the time. He was dangerous and fearless but he wasn't invincible. He just ran into the wrong people this time. The only other guy I ever saw like him in the pool world was Cornbread Red. Red would gamble with gangsters and outlaws and never back down from any of them. Somehow they seemed to respect Red though. They accepted him as a confederate. Red had a big scar across his cheek that I heard he got in a knife fight. That was his badge of honor.