Mike Malacara

[cesarmorales]

Living in San Antonio Texas I have heard tons of stories about this guy named Mike Malacara. It is even to the point that so many pool players that play in the bars will all mention Mike Malacara as the best pool player that ever lived in Texas.

Mike appears to be a local legend and I an trying to figure out if he was really that good or is it just a legend. I have talked to a couple of reputable old guys that said they beat Mike Malacara at one point but he was a good player.

So, does anyone on az billiards have any first hand knowlege of this Mike Malacara ever actually taking off some top pros in his time.

 

[JMD in VA]

Legends match

I remember Fatty mentioning him during his match with UJ Puckett, another Texas legend, when they had those legends matched back in the day. If you look up Fats and Puckett on Youtube, I think the match is on there. Fatty stops the match and begins to chat with Mosconi and the crowd for 5-10 minutes. Very funny stuff.

Back to Mike Malacara, Fatty mentions him and speaks highly of him.

 

[Mannydlc1953]

In 1967, I met and played Mike Malacara in a bar (ORPHEUS BLUES) he put on an Exhibition and started coming in to play in their weekly tournaments. He wore very thick glasses (coke bottle bottom glasses) his pool cue was wrapped in newspaper, he had a very smooth stroke and I was honored to play and beat him in one of their weekly tournaments. Another notable player that played there was Bananas Rodriguez he and I would match up for $5 / game. Santana was another regular along with Ray Meza, a Champion from Mexico. Dennis McMahon was also a regular. Getting back to Mike he was a small man about 4'11" and also carried a photo album with newspaper clippings about his winnings across the US, He was probably 70 yrs.old at the time! Great memories!