Pro player stories, your experience....

I remember Joe Frady, he was always at the tournaments around my area back in the 90's. Great player! Great story!!
 
Bruce...Do you remember the bridge heads that Joe invented? They were excellent, and you could "snap" two of them together. They never got widespread appeal...but they should have! :D

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

measureman said:
It was about 1964 and a very good player named Joe Russo from Trenton NJ was at the Toms River NJ pool room. Now at that time Joe was one of the best around and me being a cocky 17 year that played pretty good at that time made a game with him playing 9 ball where I got the 7.
I got crushed-beaten to a pulp-humiliated-ground up like hamburger.
Well at least I paid for his gas money and dinner.
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Scott Lee said:
Bruce...Do you remember the bridge heads that Joe invented? They were excellent, and you could "snap" two of them together. They never got widespread appeal...but they should have! :D

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
Click to expand...

Yes I do remember those bridge heads. I have not seen Joe Russo since the 60's. I wonder if he is still alive. If he is he would be pretty old.
He was also a very good straight pool player.
 
I have a couple but this one, I feel, is the best.

My friend and I went to watch the 2012 US open in Virginia beach. We were there to support one of the players we helped sponsor (Ramon Mistica) and another player whom we have backed up (Dennis Orcullo).

My friend and I are big fans of Efren. Ramon was kind enough to introduce us to him. To make a long story short, we spent great times hanging out at Efren's room (same place where Santos Sambajon and Ronnie alcano was staying) for the next few days we were there.

Here is where it gets interesting, this was also the same time when hurricane Sandy was about to hit ( and one of the first place to be hit was Virginia Beach). My friend was smart and found out immediately before anyone else. He had his flight rebooked. We informed Efren and the rest fo the filipino contingent. Efren and Santos asked if it is ok for them to tag along with us to aviod this whole fiasco. Due to the storm, I left for the airport at 1am as no cab is willing to take the chance in driving to a possible worst storm(my flight was at 6am). My friend brought them to the airport around 5am. My friends flight left at 7am (same as efrens'). I heard that the flights were all cancelled afterwards. I recall having a great smile after Efren and Santos was greatful for us helping them. Definitely a memorable moment for a fan like me.

Also, when my friend was waiting with Efren and Santos for their transport to the airport, he said that Jason Shaw approached them and dropped his pants (full monty) in front of efren :grin:
 
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living in atlanta has been a great chance for me to meet more than a few pros. my apa league operator (woody mcclure) has been involved in pool for a while there and has introduced me to a few of them. most notably was john schmidt. we talked for a bit about everything, including posting on az. he was verry funny and quite a nice guy. i have also gotten to meet chris bartram - another nice guy. took a few minutes to talk to me before he played danny smith at classic billiards.
another great thing about moving to atlanta was meeting and getting to be friends with jeff crawford. jeff has been brought up on az before. he's not a pro player but is a very strong player and he knows quite a few of the pros and he has always been kind enough to introduce to me to players when we have been hanging out.
since moving to the atl i've gotten to meet john schmidt, corey duel, tommy kennedy, gabe owen, johnny archer, stevie more, adam smith, chris bartram, sean putnam, alex pagulayan, and a few more i can't remember. and the one thing they all had in common is that they all took a few minutes to say hi and chat and if i asked for it, sign an autograph or take a picture.
i also have gotten to be friends with and take a few lessons from former wpba pro alice rim. i can't say enough nice things about alice. her and her husband mark are truly good people.
lastly at last years apa team championships in vegas i got to meet svb. you can't say enough good stuff about shane. i have a pic that he was nice enough to take with me i will post when i can that has a funny story to go with it.
 
George said:
Access to pro pool players by fans is very easy unlike any other pro sport. This is a given. I want to hear about your pleasant/good experiences. Save the bad ones for another thread please.

I could tell you dozens of stories, living in New England and being a fan for the last 20 years or so have probably spoiled me. Almost every pro player of note typically made their way through our area. I've met so many over the years there are just too many to mention but a few of the notables have been Efren, Varner, Rempe, Bustamante, Mika, McCready, Archer, Strickland, Parica, Hopkins etc. The list goes on..........

I could tell you about the time my 12 year old nephew matched up with Efren playing chess, the action was ridiculous. Or I could tell you about hanging around one night for hours sucking down cocktails and listening to Larry Liscotti recount various road stories, he could tell a story but.......

I'll start with a story about a true ambassador of the game. The date was September 9th 2000. I showed up early that Saturday morning, I'd say 9:30ish for The Tony Costanzo New England 9 Ball Tournament of Champions at R.I. Billiards Club. I walk in and no one is there yet except 1 person at table 6. He had his back to me and apparently had just arrived himself, his balls were still in the tray and he was putting his stick together. As he turned around and put the balls out on the table I realized it was none other than Jim Rempe.
I grab a rack of balls for table 4 and went over, spilled them on the table and started practicing. I take a chance, walk over and introduce myself and asked he wanted a practice partner. King James politely tells me he's working on a couple things, maybe in a little while. I walk back to my table and resumed my drills thinking how even though I'd been brushed off he was so nice about it that I didn't mind at all.
Ten minutes later I glance in his direction and he motions for me to grab my stick and come on over, I was souped! I spent the next 1 1/2 to 2 hours playing 9 ball with him and it was great. He gave me advice, critiqued my play and basically made my day. I could see that he truly loved to play and share what he knew. I offered to play him a cheap set or 2, even(I didn't mind donating). I would have gladly paid for the free lesson he gave me but he wouldn't have any of it.
He was very gracious and a total gentleman, a true ambassador of the game :thumbup:
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Be patient. My book, the Encyclopedia of Pool Hustlers is nearing completion. There will be over 400 pages of pool road stories, biographies, comments, photos, etc.

Beard
 
I could not begin to list the pro players whom I have seen act wonderfully towards other people. I'm not going to try. My list of professional poolplayers whom I have seen act rudely towards fans would be extraordinarily short.

I mentioned this in another thread. Jon Wertheim, the author of RUNNING THE TABLE, the book about Danny Bacevich, and a staff member of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, said in an interview that one of the things that struck him during his research was how open and forthcoming all of the pool players had been.

It was nice to see Measureman mention Joe Russo. I had been waiting for someone to bring up his name on the Forum. I saw Russo only two or three times, at the New York tournaments in the Sixties. I still recall an incident in which a supporter of another player was acting very badly in the practise room. Joe intervened and cooled down the situation. I remember thinking to myself, "That is an impressive man."

I got curious about Russo about a month ago and discovered his obituary on the Web. He had died only about two years ago! Everything in the obituary was positive. He seems to have been a devoted family man and a successful businessman. Here's the link to the obituary:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/trentonian/obituary.aspx?pid=159844954#fb
 
I learned to play pool at "Franks Billiards" owned by Frank Zummo in Eastlake Ohio. Back in the day, Frank would run a Womans Pro tourney every year. Well, I was playing one day, just before the tournament, and I couldn't have been more than maybe 15 or 16 years old. I don't think I even had a drivers license back then. I was riding my moped to the pool hall with my case around my back.:o Well low and behold, in walks Ewa Mataya to practice. She and Lori John Jones were my favorite Womens players back then. Gee, I wonder why.;) Anyways, after a few minutes she asks if I can do her a favor and rack her balls for her. That was the best hour or two of my life at that point. While she was running the balls, I'd get her gummy worms. Not a great story to you guys, but an awesome one for me.:)
 
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Tobermory said:
I could not begin to list the pro players whom I have seen act wonderfully towards other people. I'm not going to try. My list of professional poolplayers whom I have seen act rudely towards fans would be extraordinarily short.

I mentioned this in another thread. Jon Wertheim, the author of RUNNING THE TABLE, the book about Danny Bacevich, and a staff member of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, said in an interview that one of the things that struck him during his research was how open and forthcoming all of the pool players had been.

It was nice to see Measureman mention Joe Russo. I had been waiting for someone to bring up his name on the Forum. I saw Russo only two or three times, at the New York tournaments in the Sixties. I still recall an incident in which a supporter of another player was acting very badly in the practise room. Joe intervened and cooled down the situation. I remember thinking to myself, "That is an impressive man."

I got curious about Russo about a month ago and discovered his obituary on the Web. He had died only about two years ago! Everything in the obituary was positive. He seems to have been a devoted family man and a successful businessman. Here's the link to the obituary:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/trentonian/obituary.aspx?pid=159844954#fb
Click to expand...

I only played Joe Russo once. But for awhile he would come to the pool room in Toms River every Friday or Saturday and play another good local straight pool player named Ernie Lager. I watched a lot of good games between those two.
 
shamadam said:
I learned to play pool at "Franks Billiards" owned by Frank Zummo in Eastlake Ohio. Back in the day, Frank would run a Womans Pro tourney every year. Well, I was playing one day, just before the tournament, and I couldn't have been more than maybe 15 or 16 years old. I don't think I even had a drivers license back then. I was riding my moped to the pool hall with my case around my back.:o Well low and behold, in walks Ewa Mataya to practice. She and Lori John Jones were my favorite Womens players back then. Gee, I wonder why.;) Anyways, after a few minutes she asks if I can do her a favor and rack her balls for her. That was the best hour or two of my life at that point. While she was running the balls, I'd get her gummy worms. Not a great story to you guys, but an awesome one for me.:)
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I would have racked the balls for Ewa untill my hands were bloody. ;)
 
I thought it was time to bring back this thread. Some of the stories here were very good.
I need a little time to think back thru 50 + years and remember something.
What do you have?
 
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