Michigan pool player..??
- Thread starter garczar
- Start date
Paulie Campbell from Lasing.
I'll tell you some funny shit about him. Back about 82' or 83' there was a tournament in Nashville at the Maxwell House hotel, the "Music City Open".
Paulie comes up and he's broke and needs some money. I said "Paulie, you're staying here, just go in the restaurant and sit with a table you know, take their cash for the meals and you charge it to your room."
Well, I guess Paulie thought I turned him on to a new business because he ended up charging about $1500 to his room. Skipped out on it and when JOB found out he barred Paulie from anything he had anything to do with. We got that taken care of thru Cornbread but it was pretty funny seeing him in the restaurant and at the bar making money.
He passed away pretty young. Some kind of cancerous tumors. Ronnie Wiseman stayed with him till he passed taking care of him.
Paulie was a good kid and a lot of fun.
Thanks. A friend told me a story about him busting a bunch of Mexican guys at the Huebler Cup in '91. I guess the guy could flat play and would bet it up there. Sorry to hear he died early.
Yah, he was in the mold of a Scotty Townsend and others of the like that drank and did other stuff.
If they were playing good it looked so easy but more often than not they weren't.
I'm positive you know the type.
The year I was born in Detroit, MI :grin:
Reach out to Larry Carr on Facebook. He posts a bunch of road stories on his feed. Most of them are about his time spent with Paulie.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004455168830
You won’t regret it.
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https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004455168830
You won’t regret it.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Here’s one of Larry’s stories...
Paulie Campbell once explained his philosophy of matching up to me: "What does it matter what you give them if they aren't going to shoot?" I was reminded of this after swapping Paulie stories with Benny Alvarado the other night when Benny talked about watching Paulie give up the spot: Hit the legal object ball to win the game. That's even stronger than the spot I knew him to give up: Drive the legal object ball to a rail to win the game. Thirty years ago Sean Anderson was one of the strongest bar-table players in Mid-Michigan and Paulie, though still young, was far past his prime due to an acute case of I Love Hooch (an affliction I shared with him). Getting Paulie matched up locally was nearly impossible; his reputation made everyone leery of him and, in fact, he could still play remarkable pool in spurts. So when Sean showed an interest in locking horns at the Hall Of Fame in Lansing one night we were all ears. Race to seven on a bar-box with Sean getting the six and the break for $300 a set. That's like $500 a set in today's money, so it wasn't a bad little local week-night match up. But giving the six and the break to a player who can run racks is a pretty strong headwind to play into. You can play perfect one rack and not shoot the next. When we were stuck two sets we wanted to adjust, but Sean's a savvy matchmaker. He had a game he liked and customers he knew still wanted to play, so he wasn't budging. I'm a disciple of Bobby Riggs who said you must never change a winning game, but you must always change a losing game. Hell, I'll make them change their socks from one foot to the other if that's all I can get. After a lot of back and forth and jawing we finally got Sean to move the game to a big table. Sean was best known as a bar-table specialist and it would have been a strong move if he really was a bar-table player as most people thought. But Paulie and I both knew he was very capable of running racks of nine ball on a nine foot, so we weren't too surprised when we were almost immediately behind 6-0 going to seven. That meant to win Paulie had to break Sean's serve seven times in a row, make no mistakes, and protect the six. The only thing in our favor was that Paulie hadn't been out to the van in two hours. Paulie caught a gear shooting and his grind had never left him. He scratched and clawed and safetyed his way to a tough win and I mean a tough win over a player that's getting the break and can run six balls in his sleep. As a spent and sober Paulie pocketed the winning nine he looked over to see Sean slowly unscrewing his cue with a wide grin. "Paulie," Sean said, "You can't spell pool." It's the only time I ever heard Paulie sputter for an answer. And this was a boy that always had something to say - nobody ever beat Paulie in the trash talk department. He held a mild grudge against Sean for that remark for about a year, but I thought it was funny and typical of Sean. Of course, I never told Paulie I thought it was funny. In later years Sean became part of our road crew and we had some great adventures. He was always liable to say anything to anybody and they could like it or they could step-up and he didn't care which. He met the girl that tamed him (somewhat) on one of our trips to Ship 'N Shore in Toledo, in fact. He married that girl and he and Kathy owned Pockets in Lansing for a time, which was another interesting and wild adventure.
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Paulie Campbell once explained his philosophy of matching up to me: "What does it matter what you give them if they aren't going to shoot?" I was reminded of this after swapping Paulie stories with Benny Alvarado the other night when Benny talked about watching Paulie give up the spot: Hit the legal object ball to win the game. That's even stronger than the spot I knew him to give up: Drive the legal object ball to a rail to win the game. Thirty years ago Sean Anderson was one of the strongest bar-table players in Mid-Michigan and Paulie, though still young, was far past his prime due to an acute case of I Love Hooch (an affliction I shared with him). Getting Paulie matched up locally was nearly impossible; his reputation made everyone leery of him and, in fact, he could still play remarkable pool in spurts. So when Sean showed an interest in locking horns at the Hall Of Fame in Lansing one night we were all ears. Race to seven on a bar-box with Sean getting the six and the break for $300 a set. That's like $500 a set in today's money, so it wasn't a bad little local week-night match up. But giving the six and the break to a player who can run racks is a pretty strong headwind to play into. You can play perfect one rack and not shoot the next. When we were stuck two sets we wanted to adjust, but Sean's a savvy matchmaker. He had a game he liked and customers he knew still wanted to play, so he wasn't budging. I'm a disciple of Bobby Riggs who said you must never change a winning game, but you must always change a losing game. Hell, I'll make them change their socks from one foot to the other if that's all I can get. After a lot of back and forth and jawing we finally got Sean to move the game to a big table. Sean was best known as a bar-table specialist and it would have been a strong move if he really was a bar-table player as most people thought. But Paulie and I both knew he was very capable of running racks of nine ball on a nine foot, so we weren't too surprised when we were almost immediately behind 6-0 going to seven. That meant to win Paulie had to break Sean's serve seven times in a row, make no mistakes, and protect the six. The only thing in our favor was that Paulie hadn't been out to the van in two hours. Paulie caught a gear shooting and his grind had never left him. He scratched and clawed and safetyed his way to a tough win and I mean a tough win over a player that's getting the break and can run six balls in his sleep. As a spent and sober Paulie pocketed the winning nine he looked over to see Sean slowly unscrewing his cue with a wide grin. "Paulie," Sean said, "You can't spell pool." It's the only time I ever heard Paulie sputter for an answer. And this was a boy that always had something to say - nobody ever beat Paulie in the trash talk department. He held a mild grudge against Sean for that remark for about a year, but I thought it was funny and typical of Sean. Of course, I never told Paulie I thought it was funny. In later years Sean became part of our road crew and we had some great adventures. He was always liable to say anything to anybody and they could like it or they could step-up and he didn't care which. He met the girl that tamed him (somewhat) on one of our trips to Ship 'N Shore in Toledo, in fact. He married that girl and he and Kathy owned Pockets in Lansing for a time, which was another interesting and wild adventure.
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Saw him and Lori Shampo play some locals back in the early 80's. Seemed like a nice enough fellow.
Thanks. That was fun reading all that and remembering everybody.
I miss those days and everyone. It was Detroit vs Lansing vs Ohio in those days.