Rotation Player
I remember when I was growing up playing Pool in Wrightsville, Pa. I remember a black gentleman by the name of " Rotation Slim ", that was making his way around the country and I would like to know if anyone else knew of him and how good of a player he actually was. I also played rotation growing up and I remembering having to take intentional scratches at times because the combination of the ball numbers were not on the table, such as :needing a count of twelve for instance and the combination of balls were not there, taking a scratch and had my option of spotting my choice of a ball, so the combination of the new number I needed, I could now combine to make that number needed. we also played using different number combinations to make maybe" 31 " the number we needed and that allowed more players to compete in the same game, and when you acquired your correct number, everyone paid you, it was a great game and we played all night long Friday and Saturday. Another great game was Pill Pool. We would play with a number of players, shoot in rotation and if anyone didn't pocket their own ball in that rack, the neck rack would be called " a 2 timer, when all the money doubled, and by the way, you had to put money under the rail for every time someone scratched and that amount would be doubled also. The game would keep going until some times, it would be like a 8 timer, and who ever pocketed his own ball for the pill that he had, they all would pay him 8 times the amount of money, and he would collect all of the scratch money under the rail. I was only like 14 at the time and had to sneak into the pool room when the owner went to Hockey games. Then in the middle of the night when the cops would stop in the pool room, I would open the closet and hide out until the cops left. I was making between $100.00 and $200.00 every Friday and Saturday night just playing for dimes and quarters, that was a lot of money in those times. My family didn't have a lot of money, so I used to buy most all of my school clothes from money won playing these games.....OH HOW I MISS THOSE TIMES. I'm sure there are a lot of Players that could share stories like that as they were growing up. By the way, the game of Straight Pool was the game of choice all around my area of Pa., MD, New Jersey, and New York, etc. I think the game of 14.1 is one of the purest games you can learn, because it has all of the other games built in, like banking, breaking clusters, one pocket, 2 way shots, billiards and caroms,etc. One of the best highlights of my career of playing Pool was, when I was a teenager, I was asked to do an exhibition Straight Pool match with one of the best players to play straight Pool, Irving Crane. I will never forget that, I was very proud for being the choice picked to play Irving Crane, on a Saturday night, packed house to watch the match in Red Lion Pa. I ran 108 Balls warming up in front of the packed house, but I did lose the match 150 to 75. After the match, Irving invited me to his home in Rochester, New York. He and his wife treated me great, they fed me and we sat around talking about old time Pool stories and Irving took me along to the Pool Room that he played out of and I very much appreciated every thing I was able to share with Mr. Crane. Irving also told me I could bring a friend along if I wanted, and a good friend and a great Player himself, Tom Manley, from the Yankee Club in York, Pa, told me he would love to go along, so away we went to Rochester New York, for one of the highlights of my Pool Career. I will always treasure that exhibition because it was in front of all my friends and fellow Pool Players from my hometown playing area..................Duke Bayman..Wrightsville, Pa........
