"MONK" Warren Costanzo...1979 World Champion

Mr. J said:
Found this while doing some surfing this am...enjoy...

Mr. J.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1126386/index.htm

Nice Pic of Monk...scroll down...

http://www.sfbappa.org/Awards/POY/POY28.2.html
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Cool story. He captured the moment well. Monk was a huge underdog in the match with Sigel, especially since they moved it to a 9' table. After he made the final nine ball on the break, he actually fainted and fell to the floor.

What was really funny was that when Monk got down to shoot the long cut shot on the nine, it got deathly quiet in the room, with well over 500 people watching. Monk stood up, looked around and said, "It's too quiet in here." Everyone laughed. I think that calmed Monk down. Because then he got back down and made it.

One of the most amazing rolls I ever saw was when Sigel played back and forth position from the eight to the nine ball to win the match. The cue ball just kept rolling and corner hooked Mike on the point of the side pocket. He made a great safety, half masse'ing the cue ball to hit the edge of the nine ball and leave it very tough with distance.

Monk actually won $27,500 because there was a bonus pot that you had to pay $50 extra to get into. And Sigel got $11,000. There were no deals made in this final. Sigel was too big a favorite. Thirty years ago we had pay outs like this in pro pool thanks to Richie Florence. He followed this event with another one at the Tropicana the following year that Edgar "Shake 'N Bake" White won, beating "Little Al" Romero in the finals.

Then Richie went to Caesars and put on several more big money events, with first prizes in excess of 30K. What happened you might ask? Well, several of the top players in a moment of temporary insanity refused to sign the television releases (standard form for all athletes) and that put Richie out of business. Geniuses!

This final event was held at Caesars Palace in 1984 and Strickland won (25K) beating Terry Bell (12.5K) in the finals. Dallas West was third (7.5K) and I was the TD. The shows never aired on ESPN and Richie never put on another tournament. He put pro pool on national television (ESPN) and paid out top dollar prizes over twenty five years ago. Until the players put themselves out of business. By the way, Richie was NOT paying ESPN any production costs to put these shows on the air. It was all being done on their dime. I sat with Richie at the meeting where he made the deal to put these shows on TV. He was a darn good promoter and negotiator. He also had Budweiser and Caesars kicking in to the purse, over 30K added for each event.

I just thought you might like to know this little bit of background information. Pool had a great opportunity on television right here in the states a long, long time ago. But thanks to some "smart" thinking by pool players it all went up in a puff of smoke.
 
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Jay, I don't know if I should laugh or cry after reading your post...

jay helfert said:
Cool story. He captured the moment well. Monk was a huge underdog in the match with Sigel, especially since they moved it to a 9' table. After he made the final nine ball on the break, he actually fainted and fell to the floor.

What was really funny was that when Monk got down to shoot the long cut shot on the nine, it got deathly quiet in the room, with well over 500 people watching. Monk stood up, looked around and said, "It's too quiet in here." Everyone laughed. I think that calmed Monk down. Because then he got back down and made it.

One of the most amazing rolls I ever saw was when Sigel played back and forth position from the eight to the nine ball to win the match. The cue ball just kept rolling and corner hooked Mike on the point of the side pocket. He made a great safety, half masse'ing the cue ball to hit the edge of the nine ball and leave it very tough with distance.

Monk actually won $27,500 because there was a bonus pot that you had to pay $50 extra to get into. And Sigel got $11,000. There were no deals made in this final. Sigel was too big a favorite. Thirty years ago we had pay outs like this in pro pool thanks to Richie Florence. He followed this event with another one at the Tropicana the following year that Edgar "Shake 'N Bake" White won, beating "Little Al" Romero in the finals.

Then Richie went to Caesars and put on several more big money events, with first prizes in excess of 30K. What happened you might ask? Well, several of the top players in a moment of temporary insanity refused to sign the television releases (standard form for all athletes) and that put Richie out of business. Geniuses!

This final event was held at Caesars Palace in 1984 and Strickland won (25K) beating Terry Bell (12.5K) in the finals. Dallas West was third (7.5K) and I was the TD. The shows never aired on ESPN and Richie never put on another tournament. He put pro pool on national television (ESPN) and paid out top dollar prizes over twenty five years ago. Until the players put themselves out of business. By the way, Richie was NOT paying ESPN any production costs to put these shows on the air. It was all being done on their dime. I sat with Richie at the meeting where he made the deal to put these shows on TV. He was a darn good promoter and negotiator. He also had Budweiser and Caesars kicking in to the purse, over 30K added for each event.

I just thought you might like to know this little bit of background information. Pool had a great opportunity on television right here in the states a long, long time ago. But thanks to some "smart" thinking by pool players it all went up in a puff of smoke.
Click to expand...
 
jay helfert said:
Then Richie went to Caesars and put on several more big money events, with first prizes in excess of 30K. What happened you might ask? Well, several of the top players in a moment of temporary insanity refused to sign the television releases (standard form for all athletes) and that put Richie out of business. Geniuses!
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Can I ask what has happened to him since then? Did he have no interest in pool and leave this sport for good?
 
great article, not only the glory days of pool, but sports writing also

real journalists with real sports knowledge and real opinions, those old school articles really brought you into the story
 
haminh said:
Can I ask what has happened to him since then? Did he have no interest in pool and leave this sport for good?
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Randy is correct. Richie died four years ago. After he got out of promoting, he went back to playing a little. He won the World Series of Tavern Pool in 1985, beating Willie Munson in the finals for 25K! Willie got 10K for second.

Richie started up playing again in the early 90's at Hard Times. He wanted to beat Parica. Just when he was starting to play jam up again he had a stroke and became partially paralyzed, never to play pool again. He spent his remaining years betting the ponies. Sad ending for a great man.
 
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Jay...I was one of those watching in the bleachers too (I have a picture of myself that somebody else took, sitting watching that final match). Do you remember that after Monk won, Bucktooth ran over to him with a briefcase with $50K cash in it, trying to highroll him with his usual gaff bets? LOL Monk didn't bite.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

jay helfert said:
Cool story. He captured the moment well. Monk was a huge underdog in the match with Sigel, especially since they moved it to a 9' table. After he made the final nine ball on the break, he actually fainted and fell to the floor.

What was really funny was that when Monk got down to shoot the long cut shot on the nine, it got deathly quiet in the room, with well over 500 people watching. Monk stood up, looked around and said, "It's too quiet in here." Everyone laughed. I think that calmed Monk down. Because then he got back down and made it.

One of the most amazing rolls I ever saw was when Sigel played back and forth position from the eight to the nine ball to win the match. The cue ball just kept rolling and corner hooked Mike on the point of the side pocket. He made a great safety, half masse'ing the cue ball to hit the edge of the nine ball and leave it very tough with distance.

Monk actually won $27,500 because there was a bonus pot that you had to pay $50 extra to get into. And Sigel got $11,000. There were no deals made in this final. Sigel was too big a favorite. Thirty years ago we had pay outs like this in pro pool thanks to Richie Florence.
Click to expand...
 
Warren Costanza...

...had one of the greatest heads of hair in the history of billiards, if not the human race. Guys like me tend to notice that sort of thing. Happy holidays, everybody. GF
 
jay helfert said:
Randy is correct. Richie died four years ago. After he got out of promoting, he went back to playing a little. He won the World Series of Tavern Pool in 1985, beating Willie Munson in the finals for 25K! Willie got 19K for second.

Richie started up playing again in the early 90's at Hard Times. He wanted to beat Parica. Just when he was starting to play jam up again he had a stroke and became partially paralyzed, never to play pool again. He spent his remaining years betting the ponies. Sad ending for a great man.
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Enjoy your posts as always.

I understand what you say about the players wanting residuals and that helped end pro pool, but what if had worked?

From what I understand every other televised sport receives payment for their product not the other way around.

Were the players short sighted or did they want their due?

Do you know what happened to all the great televised matches 70's to 80's? Seems like they would show up on ESPN classic or since the players wouldn't sign agreements ESPN can't show them.
 
George Fels said:
...had one of the greatest heads of hair in the history of billiards, if not the human race. Guys like me tend to notice that sort of thing. Happy holidays, everybody. GF
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Yeah but you've got a great head on your shoulders! :grin-square:
 
accustatsfan said:
Enjoy your posts as always.

I understand what you say about the players wanting residuals and that helped end pro pool, but what if had worked?

From what I understand every other televised sport receives payment for their product not the other way around.

Were the players short sighted or did they want their due?

Do you know what happened to all the great televised matches 70's to 80's? Seems like they would show up on ESPN classic or since the players wouldn't sign agreements ESPN can't show them.
Click to expand...

There is no sport to my knowledge where the individual players receive "residuals" every time the show is aired. Their parent organization as in MLB, the NFL or the NBA do receive money for the rights to show their games (each team gets a share) and it filters down to the players in their contracts. Pool players were asking for something that no other athlete was getting. And remember our sport was still low on the totem pole.

I spoke with a man named Jim Davis who was a friend of mine at the time. He was an Emmy award winning TV director. He told me the best thing for our sport is the repeated viewings of our shows. He said that it is through such repeated viewings that athletes become stars. The more air time the better. And it is "stars" that ultimately drive a sport. There aren't that many WPBA events, but because of the repeated viewings players like Jeanette Lee, Allison Fisher, Karen Corr and Ga Young Kim have become fairly well known athletes.

ESPN Classic rarely will show anything that old (early 80's) and the Caesars Palace event that Earl won never aired on TV. Because I worked on those events as a TD and stage manager/directors asst. for television the directors gave me copies of many of those shows. If you contact me I will let you know about them. jayhelfert@yahoo.com
 
jay helfert said:
There is no sport to my knowledge where the individual players receive "residuals" every time the show is aired. Their parent organization as in MLB, the NFL or the NBA do receive money for the rights to show their games (each team gets a share) and it filters down to the players in their contracts. Pool players were asking for something that no other athlete was getting. And remember our sport was still low on the totem pole.

I spoke with a man named Jim Davis who was a friend of mine at the time. He was an Emmy award winning TV director. He told me the best thing for our sport is the repeated viewings of our shows. He said that it is through such repeated viewings that athletes become stars. The more air time the better. And it is "stars" that ultimately drive a sport. There aren't that many WPBA events, but because of the repeated viewings players like Jeanette Lee, Allison Fisher, Karen Corr and Ga Young Kim have become fairly well known athletes.

ESPN Classic rarely will show anything that old (early 80's) and the Caesars Palace event that Earl won never aired on TV. Because I worked on those events as a TD and stage manager/directors asst. for television the directors gave me copies of many of those shows. If you contact me I will let you know about them. jayhelfert@yahoo.com
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information. Like I said I enjoy reading your posts I feel a little smarter.
 
jay helfert said:
Randy is correct. Richie died four years ago. After he got out of promoting, he went back to playing a little. He won the World Series of Tavern Pool in 1985, beating Willie Munson in the finals for 25K! Willie got 19K for second.

Richie started up playing again in the early 90's at Hard Times. He wanted to beat Parica. Just when he was starting to play jam up again he had a stroke and became partially paralyzed, never to play pool again. He spent his remaining years betting the ponies. Sad ending for a great man.
Click to expand...

I see Willie Munson playing 5 days a week. He's still got game and he's still winning more then he's losing just not the man he used to be.
 
Fenwick said:
I see Willie Munson playing 5 days a week. He's still got game and he's still winning more then he's losing just not the man he used to be.
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Tell him Jay says hi, and ask him to tell you about our Bank Pool game from long ago. :rolleyes:
 
Monk

Monk grew up in Highlandtown,Baltimore,MD. He was a very good one pocket player,who liked to give up weight and overcome it. He had alot of gamble in him.I remember when he walked in it meant action.FastEddieF. says goodluck Monk.I think it's been 15 years at least since he was in Baltimore
 
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