Mike Eufemia

Bob Jewett

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
I'm surprised that there is little mention of Eufemia in this forum. I talked to him briefly while attending one of the Asbury Park World 14.1 Championships.

Here is an obituary for him from the April, 1979 National Billiard News:

Scan20211109.jpg
 
Uh oh, I wonder what responses you'll get to the mention of the 625 ball continuous run. Was it actually recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records?
 
kling&allen said:
Uh oh, I wonder what responses you'll get to the mention of the 625 ball continuous run. Was it actually recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records?
Click to expand...
You would have to look in the appropriate year. Guinness is not actually in the business of keeping records. They are in the business of selling beer. I don't think they even have a searchable archive of past "records".
 
Bob Jewett said:
You would have to look in the appropriate year. Guinness is not actually in the business of keeping records. They are in the business of selling beer. I don't think they even have a searchable archive of past "records".
Click to expand...

I'm disappointed you don't have paper copies of the Guinness records dating back to 1955! But I am actually surprised that National Billiard News didn't note any controversary regarding his run in that 1979 article.
 
Bob Jewett said:
I'm surprised that there is little mention of Eufemia in this forum. I talked to him briefly while attending one of the Asbury Park World 14.1 Championships.

Here is an obituary for him from the April, 1979 National Billiard News:

View attachment 615868
Click to expand...
I found this in the 1979 article on Eufemia for what it’s worth
Bob Jewett said:
I'm surprised that there is little mention of Eufemia in this forum. I talked to him briefly while attending one of the Asbury Park World 14.1 Championships.

Here is an obituary for him from the April, 1979 National Billiard News:

View attachment 615868
Click to expand...
Bob Jewett said:
You would have to look in the appropriate year. Guinness is not actually in the business of keeping records. They are in the business of selling beer. I don't think they even have a searchable archive of past "records".
Click to expand...
I found this in a 1979 article on Eufemia for what it’s worth.
 

Attachments

  • CF590E55-D536-44FB-9101-F3B819564DC5.jpeg
    CF590E55-D536-44FB-9101-F3B819564DC5.jpeg
    192.5 KB · Views: 218
Here is the letter to NBN from John Fife that prompted the above letter.

Scan20211112.jpg


Scan20211112_0001.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pin
And then there’s the matter of the purported run of 640 by Tom Parker supposedly vouched for by Dick Leonard, and of course Babe Cranfied’s is 768 supported by Carl ’Cue Ball Kelly’ Zingale. Wouldn’t it be nice if some one would run 770 in front of a large crowd with affidavits and filmed as well that way we could put this thing to bed once and for all!

Regarding the aforementioned runs I think in all likely hood they did take place, but we’ll never know.
 
L.S. Dennis said:
And then there’s the matter of the purported run of 640 by Tom Parker ...
Click to expand...
I think we need at least the date, location, and names of witnesses. Also, the BCA does not keep track of practice runs.

Some of the runs people are talking about were just practice and some of them were in announced exhibitions. Eufemia's may qualify but I have not seen the documentation other than Eufemia's own claim in his book manuscript. I have been told that his documentation was insufficient. Mosconi's 600-plus-ball runs were in practice so far as I know. Cranfield's run was a practice run according to what I have heard. As for Tom Parker, I have never heard any details about his run, including whether it was an exhibition.
 
One thing for certain, he was an excellent player. If I am not mistaken, he was a player who did not perform well in tournament play, which explains why a smaller group is familiar with him, than some other lesser players who were always at major tournaments.
 
kling&allen said:
Was there any contemporaneous report of this 625 ball run in 1960?
Click to expand...
It's hard to say. I have access to some newspaper archives through newspapers.com, the Library of Congress (limited), and the NY Times. None of those seems to have a report of the run. Of course that search is limited in the number of titles and I (or the text scanning systems) may have missed something in the titles I could search.
 
Bob Jewett said:
It's hard to say. I have access to some newspaper archives through newspapers.com, the Library of Congress (limited), and the NY Times. None of those seems to have a report of the run. Of course that search is limited in the number of titles and I (or the text scanning systems) may have missed something in the titles I could search.
Click to expand...

I did a search of what I have access to and couldn't find any mention of a record run in the 1960s. Eufemia shows up quite often for his tournament play (especially in New York papers), but no mention of the run. Mosconi's run shows up in hundreds of articles in the years after it occurred.
 
Cameron Smith said:
In front of a stand of 200? That’s sounds like a huge number. Was that common for 14.1 exhibitions at that time? I was always under the impression that no one saw his run from beginning to end.
Click to expand...
I was not there and I do not know the person who wrote the letter to the editor. I suppose 200 is not impossible or maybe the writer meant there were 200 seats.

In order for any run to have been considered a record, it would have had to be a scheduled and announced exhibition. Usually an exhibition has multiple people who stay for the whole thing.

I have heard "no one for the whole run" about Cranfield's practice run but I don't recall hearing it about the Eufemia claimed run.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top