Mike Massey Moved The Ball!
- Thread starter DrCue'sProtege
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middleofnowhere
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Not good to have an opinion even if asked for. This made me remember something that happened decades ago that taught me a lesson. Harry Cohen was mentioned in another thread recently. He was playing a guy at the Congress Billiards in Miami where I used to go. I was just a teenager and for the most part a fly on the wall, i got involved in very little. The Congress for me was a college education in pool.
Anyway, Harry is playing this guy and they start arguing over a frozen ball. Several guys look at it with different opinions. Harry points to me and says, "Let that kid look at it, he has those young eyes. What ever he says it is, it is". I get up and walk over and bend over to look. Those guys must be blind because while it's close and not easy to see the ball is not frozen. So I stand up and say,"Not frozen".
At that point Harry Cohen starts yelling "Well it's not now but it was, it must have moved with everybody hovering over it". I went back and sat down as they continued to argue. No one cared about my opinion.
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It really depends on which mike they know. If you think he wouldn't cheat in his younger years you are mistaken. Then he would get in your face and try to bully you with his size and yelling. Not knocking the mike of today but he certainly wasn't a saint all of his life!
Moving on to why I was posting, I was sitting by the TV table but actually watching a road player on the next table. A guy with a sterling reputation by the way. Good enough that his young opponent walked away from the table while he was running out a nine ball rack. He had a easy ball to pocket and he needed to break his next ball out of a cluster about three feet away. Easy shot though, just needed a little draw. I was surprised when he didn't make any effort to break out the ball he was shooting at next, instead pocketing a ball several inches in front of it on his next shot. Now I was really curious what he was going to do when he realized he shot a ball out of order. He ran a couple balls after the one he shot out of order then dropped back and shot the one that was now sitting there three or four balls out of order and finished the run out. Never seemed to notice what he did which I suppose is remotely possible. On the other hand, if it was deliberate which was more likely, I had to wonder just how many times he had pulled that move.
Almost anything can and does happen one time or another on a pool table. Some honest, some not so much! Entertaining times when I gambled nightly and swung fairly wide loops to do it often playing in strange places. A stranger often found himself playing his opponent and the crowd. If your opponent cheats even as blatantly as moving a ball and the crowd backs him up not much you can do.
Hu
I'd have never thought that about Mike! I've only known the older, kinder, gentler version of Mike, singing Christian songs and playing his guitar in the pool room. Thanks for the post!
middleofnowhere
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He is actually the first to tell you. I first met him about 40 years ago and he was already the new Mike. People who knew before will tell you he was a guy you would not like. He has lightened up over the years, he used to be brutal with that religion stuff.
He would do the subliminal stuff like the guy from Saturday night live. You'd be talking about something and all of a sudden he would say "Jesus Christ as your lord and savior" and continue on talking like he hadn't said it. It was kind of weird.
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Mike was going through a lot of alcohol back then, as I was too. Mike won some fair sized events back then but wasn't quite where he wanted to be as a pro player. It all made for a man that could go from zero to red ass in half a second. It had been decades since I had seen Mike when I went to a benefit he did after Katrina. Quite a different fellow! They were on eight foot Olehausen home tables, which were donated by Olehausen to auction off afterwards by the way, but Mike was still shooting pretty fair.
They played the people in the crowd eight ball and if you won you got a signed ball. I watched Mike for a couple hours before the exhibition. Granted soft tables but in that time I think he failed to run down to the eight ball twice. Oddly enough he hooked himself on the eight ball and missed it every game though! It was funny that the young gun that was with me never noticed this. I saw it the first game, confirmed it the second. "Spitball Charlie" Darling maybe, I can't remember the last name, was with him. Nice gesture from both of them.
Reminds me, the donation was ten dollars to play Mike or Charlie. Three or four youngsters were playing Mike over and over to get full sets of balls. Mike cut price to them to three dollars a game. Mike was headed to the mideast soon after that, maybe Dubai, I don't remember for certain. He was planning to sign all of the souvenir stuff "Jesus loves you". Mike can be more than a little stubborn but somebody must have persuaded him what a really bad idea that was, he made it back home!
Hu
Back in the old ‘Tarzan’ days, I was in Club Billiards in Wichita. Mike went out of his way to make a game with a guy he really disliked....beat him for his last $800...he stood at the entrance and kept giving money to people entering or leaving till the $800 was gone....he said he hated the guy so much he didn’t want his money...but he didn’t want him having it....I can’t picture the new Mike hating anybody...and that’s a good thing, he’s a physical marvel.
....somebody jarred him with LSD, and he ended up in a psych ward in Frisco....when he recovered, he did a lot of soul searching and became religious.
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I agree. He probably thought he had ball in hand.
We all have brain lapses. I was playing Jerry McWhorter in the finals of the Cuemakers International 9 Ball Championship a few years ago and he beat me 8 to 5 in a race to seven. Neither one of us noticed he did not mark a game until I rewatched the match on video.
middleofnowhere
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Mike plays very relaxed talking to the audience. I only played him once in a tournament and it can be very distracting. He can act like it is his show.
Miz used to do that also, he tried to make you feel like your just his supporting cast.
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Funny thing, the fiercest battle I was ever in we were laughing and talking to each other the whole time. Started that four to six hours as strangers and were friends at the end of the battle. Ended with a strong effort to get me to go on the road then and a standing invite. I don't think I have ever been as perfectly matched with someone before or since! While we were talking and laughing the action on the table was as intense as I have ever played for that length of time. It wasn't Mike but I have never forgotten that match or player. Fantastic time! If pool was always like that and on TV it would crowd out everything else and make other sports seem second rate!
I think this basically mum pool is a flaw and players should be free to talk except when the other player is down on a shot or has asked for silence.
Hu