Does anybody remember Port Chester Mickey from NY?If so do you have any stories about him.
Port Chester Mickey
- Thread starter caponesinc
- Start date
Maybe do a search. I am sure that I have read about him in another thread a while ago. Good luck!
Mickey Carpinello
This is an exerpt from my book, The GosPool:
...William “Sailor” Barge's student, "Port Chester Mickey," was cut from the same bolt of cloth, and he eventually became the greatest, unknown player in the country. The reason Mickey stayed an unknown was his dope habit. Mickey was a heroin addict. He would stay burrowed, deeply, into his dope world for years, never playing a game of pool.
Mickey would emerge periodically, when "Sugar Shack" Johnny Novak and myself traveled to Port Chester, NY and dragged him out of his drug world and took him with us on the road. While on the road, Mickey would go "cold turkey" and stay in the room for weeks kicking his habit. "Sugar Shack" insisted that Mickey must be totally straight while he was with us. It usually took about 30 days for Mickey to become a human being again.
After about three weeks, Mickey would start practicing diligently for hours every day. Two weeks of hard practice and he would be ready. Then we would turn him loose on the pool world. It was like unleashing Dracula on a necklace show. Nobody knew Mickey, so he went through the best players wherever he played like a chain saw going through butter. It was a massacre.
When Mickey was straight he had no bad habits. He didn't drink or smoke and could play for hours on cup of coffee and a candy bar. Mickey was a brutal sadist on a pool table. He would get ten or twelve games ahead playing 9-Ball (the only game he played) and if his opponent showed the slightest signs of revival, like trying to win a game, Mickey would change the rules in ways that favored him even more — no lucking in the 9-Ball — call your shot, and when he was really feeling ornery he'd make opponents call their position for every shot, which is a test many professionals cannot pass.
Seeing Mickey in action was like watching the 3rd Infantry division rolling through Iraq. Mickey's position play was so flawless that it seemed that he never had a hard shot. I once told him, "I'm not sure if you can really play. You beat everybody, but all you ever shoot is hangers."
How good did Mickey really play? Good enough to sneak up on Wade "Boom Boom" Crane, aka, "Billy Johnson" in Atlanta in the sixties, when Billy only missed an average of one ball a week playing 9-Ball.
When he was off the drugs, Mickey was a clear minded philosopher whose views on any subject were worth recording. With that in mind, I once asked him, "Mickey, with a mind like you have, with such a clear, pure perspective on everything, how the hell could you become a lifetime heroin junkie?" His reply was a typical Mickeyism, "When I am on heroin, my mind is not so clear."
All things must come to an end. After a few months of looting and pillaging top players, we would wake up one morning and Mickey would be gone. Gone back to Port Chester with his winnings. Gone back to the dope world. Back with freshly healed veins, where the dope, for the first week at least, would actually feel good. Back to no pool and anonymity for a few more years, until "Sugar Shack" and myself would dredge him up again and repeat the ritual.
Beard
This is an exerpt from my book, The GosPool:
...William “Sailor” Barge's student, "Port Chester Mickey," was cut from the same bolt of cloth, and he eventually became the greatest, unknown player in the country. The reason Mickey stayed an unknown was his dope habit. Mickey was a heroin addict. He would stay burrowed, deeply, into his dope world for years, never playing a game of pool.
Mickey would emerge periodically, when "Sugar Shack" Johnny Novak and myself traveled to Port Chester, NY and dragged him out of his drug world and took him with us on the road. While on the road, Mickey would go "cold turkey" and stay in the room for weeks kicking his habit. "Sugar Shack" insisted that Mickey must be totally straight while he was with us. It usually took about 30 days for Mickey to become a human being again.
After about three weeks, Mickey would start practicing diligently for hours every day. Two weeks of hard practice and he would be ready. Then we would turn him loose on the pool world. It was like unleashing Dracula on a necklace show. Nobody knew Mickey, so he went through the best players wherever he played like a chain saw going through butter. It was a massacre.
When Mickey was straight he had no bad habits. He didn't drink or smoke and could play for hours on cup of coffee and a candy bar. Mickey was a brutal sadist on a pool table. He would get ten or twelve games ahead playing 9-Ball (the only game he played) and if his opponent showed the slightest signs of revival, like trying to win a game, Mickey would change the rules in ways that favored him even more — no lucking in the 9-Ball — call your shot, and when he was really feeling ornery he'd make opponents call their position for every shot, which is a test many professionals cannot pass.
Seeing Mickey in action was like watching the 3rd Infantry division rolling through Iraq. Mickey's position play was so flawless that it seemed that he never had a hard shot. I once told him, "I'm not sure if you can really play. You beat everybody, but all you ever shoot is hangers."
How good did Mickey really play? Good enough to sneak up on Wade "Boom Boom" Crane, aka, "Billy Johnson" in Atlanta in the sixties, when Billy only missed an average of one ball a week playing 9-Ball.
When he was off the drugs, Mickey was a clear minded philosopher whose views on any subject were worth recording. With that in mind, I once asked him, "Mickey, with a mind like you have, with such a clear, pure perspective on everything, how the hell could you become a lifetime heroin junkie?" His reply was a typical Mickeyism, "When I am on heroin, my mind is not so clear."
All things must come to an end. After a few months of looting and pillaging top players, we would wake up one morning and Mickey would be gone. Gone back to Port Chester with his winnings. Gone back to the dope world. Back with freshly healed veins, where the dope, for the first week at least, would actually feel good. Back to no pool and anonymity for a few more years, until "Sugar Shack" and myself would dredge him up again and repeat the ritual.
Beard
All I can say is that he was legendary and thank God I never ran into him. Those that did never forgot him. One guy I asked (David Sizemore) how good he was, looked me in the eye and said, "How good was Lassiter?" I never forgot that line and David was a pretty sharp cat, just a little crazy.
I may have seen him playing white Cannonball at Guys and Dolls in the 60's. All I know is he ran through Cannonball (a very good player) like a hot knife through butter. It was something like a Ten Ahead session and finished in maybe two hours or less. I was busy being entertained by Little Frankie so I wasn't paying that close attention to Mickey's match. When Frankie played everyone crowded around to watch the show, a 13 year old kid robbing some grown up and talking a mile a minute too!
I may have seen him playing white Cannonball at Guys and Dolls in the 60's. All I know is he ran through Cannonball (a very good player) like a hot knife through butter. It was something like a Ten Ahead session and finished in maybe two hours or less. I was busy being entertained by Little Frankie so I wasn't paying that close attention to Mickey's match. When Frankie played everyone crowded around to watch the show, a 13 year old kid robbing some grown up and talking a mile a minute too!
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Good story Freddy, that one was worth the read right there.
George Fels
George Fels wrote a article in the Billiards Digest about Port Chester Mickey,It would be niece to have him respond to this thread,does anybody know how to contact him?
George Fels wrote a article in the Billiards Digest about Port Chester Mickey,It would be niece to have him respond to this thread,does anybody know how to contact him?
Contacting George Fels
Oh, there's probably a way. GF
Oh, there's probably a way. GF
George thanks for replying.I grew up in the Newburgh NY area and saw Mickey play a few times when he came out of the woodwork.He was amazing!I also played with Toby Sweet,he was also a great player.If you could share your stories about them,i"m sure the readers here would enjoy it. Rgds,Rocky
Mickey and Toby
There's very little I can share about the late Mike Carpinello that Freddy hasn't already. As I recall, my column did point out that unlike most stoners, Mickey could not play at all when high, and didn't even care to try; he had to level off first. But I only knew him personally through Freddy, and not well at all at that. Seemed like a pretty decent guy to me.
Nor can I tell you much about Toby, except that he was by near-unanimous consensus a top-flight player - and this in New York, which was as close to pool's mecca as the game has ever had. He was also easily one of the skinniest players I ever saw any place or at any time; his "chicken wings" stuck out of his back as though he had just been liberated from death camp. GF
There's very little I can share about the late Mike Carpinello that Freddy hasn't already. As I recall, my column did point out that unlike most stoners, Mickey could not play at all when high, and didn't even care to try; he had to level off first. But I only knew him personally through Freddy, and not well at all at that. Seemed like a pretty decent guy to me.
Nor can I tell you much about Toby, except that he was by near-unanimous consensus a top-flight player - and this in New York, which was as close to pool's mecca as the game has ever had. He was also easily one of the skinniest players I ever saw any place or at any time; his "chicken wings" stuck out of his back as though he had just been liberated from death camp. GF
So, is this guy still alive or did he vanish from the face of the Earth? How old would he be now?
He was in his mid 60's,I think he passed last year,heard he overdoses.
He was in his mid 60's,I think he passed last year,heard he overdoses.
I think he passed in the mid 90's, at least people around here (Westchester) said he did back then.
I recently talked to Port Chester Mickey's daughter and she told me he did pass away but it was not a overdose,I just wanted to set record straight ! Rgd's Rocky
and it was nowhere near 2011, correct?
Mickey's Daughter said he passed at 53 yrs old I think 1991.