Watching "The Hustler" I noticed a wall sign at Ames that that read "No Masse' Shots". I know jumping has always been a source of contention, but I was unaware of masse' ever being frowned upon. I assumed it had always been generally accepted as part of the game. Was it disapproved of in a specific era or just in certain pool halls? Can someone gives us a little history on this?
I would take a guess in that the masse shot is a high skill shot and is difficult to learn, someone repeatedly practicing masse shots will really tear up a table. So "No masse" shot was a common sign seen in pool rooms. That is not to say when they came up people didn't do them but it was frowned on.
The masse shot per say, (A complete change or direction of the cue ball, not just a light curve), is not really that common in pool but in straight rail billiards it is a very common shot and it's use in pool is a cross over. Either way, I saw those signs in almost every pool room I went in back in the 60's. Many even had signs, "No Powder", "Don't sit on the tables", "Quiet" and so on. In most all cases it was the call by the establishment and had to be respected. I remember one place I went if the guy saw you with a can of power he went after you like you had insulted his mother.
Mean time I played in places, usually in the south, where they never used bridges and you would see a guy on his knees in the middle of the table shooting.
I had to come back and add this. I had forgotten that way back when the cloth was not like today. It was mostly wool and you could put a tear in it very easily. Heck, I remember actually tearing it when stretching a new cloth too much. Most pool rooms had tables where you could see repairs in the cloth often making the cueball change directions when it rolled over it. They didn't even like seeing you break on a new cloth, many places would give you a small piece of scrap cloth to break from. The cloth today is bulletproof compared to that old stuff.
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