Mosconi cup dream team

[L.S. Dennis]

I will commend you for the Florian Kohler pick. Along with Minnesota Fats, he is surely the most charismatic entertainer of our times at the pool table.

I'll take a crack at the American team, maybe;

Wade Crane,
Louie Roberts
Earl,
David Howard
Lassiter (in his prime)

 

[u12armresl]

Souquet and Archer are probably the two best ever in the Mosconi, so let's start with them.

I'd probably go, in no particular order, as follows:

Team USA
Jonny Archer
Nick Varner
Earl Strickland
Sky Woodward
Rodney Morris

Team Europe
Ralf Souquet
Niels Feijen
Mika Immonen
Darren Appleton
Jayson Shaw

SJM, SJM, SJM, Rodney?

 

[u12armresl]

Yes, but you are living in fantasyland. Mosconi selection is recognition of playing excellence in the period leading up to the event. Even if yours were the primary selection criterion, several of your choices make no sense at all.

Not fantasy land, just a few nuggets short of a kids meal.

 

[iusedtoberich]

All at 21 years old, and my emphasis is fast players which I think have a big edge in the Mosconi format.

Mosconi
Earl
21 yr old Archer (when he was fast)
Shane
Worst (I know he didn't play pool until his 30's, so since we are pretending, I'll pretend he started with pool and not 3 cushion).

Filler
Shaw
Ortman
Neils
Gorst (at 21 he represented Russia)

 

[AtLarge]

SJM, SJM, SJM, Rodney?

Rodney's Cup record is rather strange. He was on the team 10 times. For the first 4 years, his record was 16 wins and 3 losses for singles, doubles, and trebles combined (i.e., ignoring the teams matches). Superb! But then for the last 6 years, his record was 8 wins and 22 losses. Lousy!

 

[skogstokig]

All at 21 years old, and my emphasis is fast players which I think have a big edge in the Mosconi format.

Mosconi
Earl
21 yr old Archer (when he was fast)
Shane
Worst (I know he didn't play pool until his 30's, so since we are pretending, I'll pretend he started with pool and not 3 cushion).

Filler
Shaw
Ortman
Neils
Gorst (at 21 he represented Russia)

you forgot tony drago

 

[Flakeandrun]

you forgot tony drago

There's a ton of older snooker players that I wish took on pool more seriously. Lots had brief forays with the game. Only some really went for it.

Drago was one of my favourites to watch growing up. The speed he'd play snooker with was great to watch.

 

[sjm]

SJM, SJM, SJM, Rodney?

Thanks for the compliment, but who's your fifth member of Team USA?

 

[Justaneng]

Thats when they change the law.

In reality some businesses slow play meeting regulations.

Slavery emancipation and Civil Rights were passed into law however its practice was not consistent in all areas.

Willie did a live high run world record.
Jayson did an at home recorded world pool record.

Overtime and 50+ hour work weeks are more common now than during Mosconi’s realm.

Henry Ford popularized the 5x8 work week as early as 1914. This wasn’t out of altruism, but he knew that if people wanted to buy cars they would need the time to drive them. He more/less realized the law of diminishing returns and capitalized on them.

Coming out of WWII there was another downward pressure on labor. A bunch of labor was returning to the work force from overseas and certain industries (I.e naval ship production and artillery manufacturing) plummeted. It would take a while for this gap to be refilled by consumer products.

This is part of what lead to white flight and the explosion of suburbia - you were only working 8 hours per day so of course you didn’t have to live anywhere near work. Also the baby boom. You could commute 45 minutes to work, work your 8-hours, commute 45 minutes back, and still have enough energy to make a baby.

Later on health insurance premiums and training costs for a more high tech environment would mean that it’s more valuable to just pay some overtime vs having and entirely separate employee. Similarly the explosion of consumer products meant that things a “keeping up with the Joneses” attitude would take place, and things like cable TV (now streaming services) and phones would be mandatory expenses.