Pool author R.A Dyer sinks his shot
By John Kelso
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I should have known better than to play pool for even a little money with a guy who writes about it.
"You want to play a game of nine-ball?" asked R.A. (Jake) Dyer, when we hooked up recently at Slick Willie's Pool Hall on South Lamar Boulevard. "How about a dollar on the five and $2 on the nine? Ball in hand, right?"
I said yeah sure and two games later I was $6 lighter.
"See, this is how it starts," said Dyer, who isn't as good a pool player as he is an author, though he ain't bad. "This is how it always starts."
Jake has a new book out called "The Hustler and the Champ," the story of the grudge match between Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats, the most-watched pool shootout in American history. Nearly 20 million people tuned in to "Wide World of Sports" in 1978 to watch the event moderated by Howard Cosell. "It didn't have better ratings than the Super Bowl, but it did have better ratings than some World Series games," said Dyer, a Capitol bureau reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a columnist for Billiards Digest. "It was up there in the stratosphere of sports."
The book follows the lives of Mosconi, a 15-time world champion who looked at pool as work, and Fats, who looked at pool as a way to avoid it. Mosconi was a serious man and not a lot of fun to be around. He was at home in a tux. Fats was at home in your wallet. He was a fast-talking hustler named Rudolf Walter Wanderone who didn't even claim the name Minnesota Fats until after the movie "The Hustler" came out in 1961 and made Minnesota Fats, played by Jackie Gleason, a household name.
Not that Wanderone wasn't known as Fats before the film appeared. Before becoming Minnesota Fats, Wanderone had claimed to be a variety of other Fats ? New York Fats, Triple Smart Fats and Double Smart Fats. "He might have gone by Chicago Fats for a while," Dyer said. "Wherever he was, he was Fats." But it's unclear whether he was ever in Minnesota.
"He was a vulgar child, filthy and foul-mouthed," Dyer writes of Fats. "He was slatternly, while Willie was fastidious. He was affable, while Willie was ill-tempered." Yet both were important to the sport, because they put it on the map. Both are in the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame, the Cooperstown of pool.
Mosconi won the big televised match, which included a spat because Fats wanted to play with his jacket off, which chapped the formal Mosconi. "I ain't gonna play in no coat, Willie," Fats said before the match had even started. "A coat. Why, a coat on a pool player is like ice cream on a hot dog."
"The Shoot-Out hadn't even begun ... and already Willie was ready to strangle him," Dyer writes.
But while Fats was running his mouth, Mosconi was running the table. Dyers' book covers that and the history of pool in the previous century. I'd always wondered why my dad was a fairly decent pool shot, since he grew up in a town in Maine that consisted of a handful of farmhouses and men sitting around spitting into a wood stove. It was, as Dyer points out in his book, because in the early part of the 20th century American males went to pool halls to get out of the houses. The sport was so popular that The New York Times ran the results of big pool tournaments the way newspapers now cover the NFL.
Dyer's interest in pool began because of his uncle. "My Uncle Rob was kind of a pool hustler," Dyer recalled. "He was kind of divorced and a real wild man. He always carried a pool cue around with him, and that really impressed me. I remember one time he came by and visited and I was real little. He was opening up his suitcase and he had some brass knuckles. I asked him what those are for, and he said, 'Sometimes when you win, guys are poor sports about it.' "
Dyer is so consumed by pool that his book is loaded with footnotes. Footnotes in a pool book ? go figure. But remember the source. "No other sport requires such precise control over a ball," Dyer said. "When played well, it's not enough to have a vague sense of knowing where the (cue) ball is going. You have to know precisely."
You also have to know where your money is going. And in my case it was into Dyer's pocket. But he bought the beer, so what the heck?
John Kelso's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays in the American-Statesman. Contact him at 445-3606 or jkelso@statesman.com.
http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/other/03/20//0320coffee.html
By John Kelso
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I should have known better than to play pool for even a little money with a guy who writes about it.
"You want to play a game of nine-ball?" asked R.A. (Jake) Dyer, when we hooked up recently at Slick Willie's Pool Hall on South Lamar Boulevard. "How about a dollar on the five and $2 on the nine? Ball in hand, right?"
I said yeah sure and two games later I was $6 lighter.
"See, this is how it starts," said Dyer, who isn't as good a pool player as he is an author, though he ain't bad. "This is how it always starts."
Jake has a new book out called "The Hustler and the Champ," the story of the grudge match between Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats, the most-watched pool shootout in American history. Nearly 20 million people tuned in to "Wide World of Sports" in 1978 to watch the event moderated by Howard Cosell. "It didn't have better ratings than the Super Bowl, but it did have better ratings than some World Series games," said Dyer, a Capitol bureau reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a columnist for Billiards Digest. "It was up there in the stratosphere of sports."
The book follows the lives of Mosconi, a 15-time world champion who looked at pool as work, and Fats, who looked at pool as a way to avoid it. Mosconi was a serious man and not a lot of fun to be around. He was at home in a tux. Fats was at home in your wallet. He was a fast-talking hustler named Rudolf Walter Wanderone who didn't even claim the name Minnesota Fats until after the movie "The Hustler" came out in 1961 and made Minnesota Fats, played by Jackie Gleason, a household name.
Not that Wanderone wasn't known as Fats before the film appeared. Before becoming Minnesota Fats, Wanderone had claimed to be a variety of other Fats ? New York Fats, Triple Smart Fats and Double Smart Fats. "He might have gone by Chicago Fats for a while," Dyer said. "Wherever he was, he was Fats." But it's unclear whether he was ever in Minnesota.
"He was a vulgar child, filthy and foul-mouthed," Dyer writes of Fats. "He was slatternly, while Willie was fastidious. He was affable, while Willie was ill-tempered." Yet both were important to the sport, because they put it on the map. Both are in the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame, the Cooperstown of pool.
Mosconi won the big televised match, which included a spat because Fats wanted to play with his jacket off, which chapped the formal Mosconi. "I ain't gonna play in no coat, Willie," Fats said before the match had even started. "A coat. Why, a coat on a pool player is like ice cream on a hot dog."
"The Shoot-Out hadn't even begun ... and already Willie was ready to strangle him," Dyer writes.
But while Fats was running his mouth, Mosconi was running the table. Dyers' book covers that and the history of pool in the previous century. I'd always wondered why my dad was a fairly decent pool shot, since he grew up in a town in Maine that consisted of a handful of farmhouses and men sitting around spitting into a wood stove. It was, as Dyer points out in his book, because in the early part of the 20th century American males went to pool halls to get out of the houses. The sport was so popular that The New York Times ran the results of big pool tournaments the way newspapers now cover the NFL.
Dyer's interest in pool began because of his uncle. "My Uncle Rob was kind of a pool hustler," Dyer recalled. "He was kind of divorced and a real wild man. He always carried a pool cue around with him, and that really impressed me. I remember one time he came by and visited and I was real little. He was opening up his suitcase and he had some brass knuckles. I asked him what those are for, and he said, 'Sometimes when you win, guys are poor sports about it.' "
Dyer is so consumed by pool that his book is loaded with footnotes. Footnotes in a pool book ? go figure. But remember the source. "No other sport requires such precise control over a ball," Dyer said. "When played well, it's not enough to have a vague sense of knowing where the (cue) ball is going. You have to know precisely."
You also have to know where your money is going. And in my case it was into Dyer's pocket. But he bought the beer, so what the heck?
John Kelso's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays in the American-Statesman. Contact him at 445-3606 or jkelso@statesman.com.
http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/other/03/20//0320coffee.html
