Ray Martin and Me

[Kentucky Rack Man]

You have been Honored to meet some of the Greats and Blessed with a Good Wife. thanks again

 

[rogwin]

I see Ray every time I am at the pool hall. I think he is turning 89 in a week or so. Still looks great and as sharp as a tack. Remarkable guy in a lot of ways!

What poolroom is this? I used to see him every time I go to the poolroom in Clearwater/Largo Florida area too 20 years ago.. Bunch of us used to play a lots of golf on a snooker table. Nice guy.

 

[arnaldo]

Beyond doubt, the poster, Tennessee Joe, who revived this long-in-the-tooth, but intriguing thread is in fact, Lou's creative writing agent.

Arnaldo ~ Gonna get me one of these spare-no-shoe leather agents like Lou has.
Old Hollywood gag describes an aspiring screenwriter returning to his house one day from an out of town trip, and is greeted by the local fire captain who halts the writer's car. Captain sadly explains "Sir, your agent couldn't reach you, so he came to your house today trying to speak with you. While he was here, the furnace exploded -- killing your agent and your wife and both children.
Writer replies: "My agent actually came to my house?"
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[ChrisinNC]

What poolroom is this? I used to see him every time I go to the poolroom in Clearwater/Largo Florida area too 20 years ago.. Bunch of us used to play a lots of golf on a snooker table. Nice guy.

Brass Tap in Raleigh, NC is the pool room that Ray regularly hangs out at, offers lessons out of, and where he has resided and has a home, for the last 15+ years,

 

[Quesports]

What poolroom is this? I used to see him every time I go to the poolroom in Clearwater/Largo Florida area too 20 years ago.. Bunch of us used to play a lots of golf on a snooker table. Nice guy.

Hi Rogwin. Ray lives in North Carolina and has for some years now.

He can be found at The Brass Tap on Capitol Blvd in Raleigh daily. Eighteen 9 foot tables; 9 Diamond’s and 9 Gold Crown tables. There is a very active one pocket crowd daily for small stakes and an occasional game for bigger amounts.

By far the best pool room in the area. Low volume music all day and night, it is a real pool players room. Which is why Ray comes in. He really enjoys the matches and everyone enjoys his presence and stories. He is very well respected and liked by all. Occasionally he breaks out his cue and plays which is fun for everyone.

Gotta say he looks great for his age, we should all be so lucky!

 

[rogwin]

Hi Rogwin. Ray lives in North Carolina and has for some years now.

He can be found at The Brass Tap on Capitol Blvd in Raleigh daily. Eighteen 9 foot tables; 9 Diamond’s and 9 Gold Crown tables. There is a very active one pocket crowd daily for small stakes and an occasional game for bigger amounts.

By far the best pool room in the area. Low volume music all day and night, it is a real pool players room. Which is why Ray comes in. He really enjoys the matches and everyone enjoys his presence and stories. He is very well respected and liked by all. Occasionally he breaks out his cue and plays which is fun for everyone.

Gotta say he looks great for his age, we should all be so lucky!

Thanks. Sounds like a great poolroom. Wish I am living around there instead of west Los Angeles with no poolroom


Sent from my iPhone using AzBilliards Forums

 

[Shooter08]

Good read if you haven’t seen it before.

 

[Quesports]

Thanks. Sounds like a great poolroom. Wish I am living around there instead of west Los Angeles with no poolroom


Sent from my iPhone using AzBilliards Forums

It’s been the best in the Raleigh area for over thirty years. Tony Coates sold it a couple years ago and the new owners are carrying on. Music noise level is very reasonable. I hate the rooms that blast the music so loud you can’t hold a conversation!

 

[kollegedave]

I think since day one I have been a straight pool fanatic. And back in the 70‘s there were few guide posts to the game. So when Ray Martin’s, “The 99 Critical Shots in Pool” came out in 1977, I was all over it. Not that the book is devoted specifically to the nuances of 14.1, though there are a couple dozen pages on break shots, it was just the fact that Ray Martin himself, already at that time an east coast straight pool legend and two-time world champion at the game (he was to win his third crown in 1978), had deigned to share anything in the first place. And so, in addition to his accomplishments as a player, I have always held Ray in high regard for giving us all something to gnaw on way back when.

A couple of years ago while at the dinner table I had confessed to my wife that, one day, circumstances allowing, I'd love to get a 14.1 lesson from Dallas West up in Illinois, or perhaps Ray Martin if I was ever out in Florida again. She had figured out where Dallas was and gave me a lesson with Dallas as a memorable Christmas gift and I visited with Dallas last year. Months after I got my lesson with Dallas, she had done it again with another box this past Christmas that held a handmade card that read, “Good for one lesson with Ray Martin.” It even had his photo on it. Two weeks ago we were off to Florida to see friends and I broke away one morning to cash in my gift card at Ray Martin’s house for a four hour straight pool lesson.

It was a little surreal to drive out to Largo, through the fog, pull into his driveway, ring the door bell and have Ray himself greet me. We walked into a room with his trophies, art work by The Birkbeck Twins, Tom and Dan, black and white pool action photographs, and a 9’ Gandy.

So Ray asked, “What are we doing?” and I explained my general concept: for me to break a rack open and for him to walk me through a run and how he would take the balls off the table. I screwed together my nice, new, five-point Gina “travel cue” and racked them up and for a while we discussed ideal break shots, and it was then that he provided me with the first of what were to be many surprises when I asked him, “So, given the choice, what break shot do you favor?” And he said, “You’re going to be surprised,” as he walked over and set up a behind the rack break shot. And I said, “Really?!” And he responded, “In all the years I’ve been using it, it’s rarely failed to give me a shot.” So then I asked, “Well, what about the side of the stack break -- where do you like to go into them?” And again, a surprise. “It doesn’t matter to me -- high, low, I just want enough of an angle,” and he set them up to show me his preferred angle of attack.

All that led to a discussion about drawing and following the ball off the stack and in particular an interesting insight (at least for me) that he shared with me about the draw shot in general. To be honest, it was an eye-opener.

So after some additional discussion on the matter of break shots, I was about to begin, and decided that being the good student I was, I’d start with a behind the stack break. And then the lights went out. No really -- all the lights went out. Right before there’d been a distant “pop” and Ray said, “A transformer has gone out.” The whole neighborhood was without power. Cathy, his companion, called the power company and we debated as to what to do and I opted to press on with just the light from a sliding glass door and one other window in the room. It actually wasn’t too bad and the only time I had a bit of trouble was when shooting directly towards the left side of the table with the sliding doors providing a strong backlight that made it difficult to see the rail on that side of the table. I remember getting up off one shot and then getting back into shooting position grousing, “It’s tough to see the side pocket,“ and Ray unforgivingly cracked, “It hasn’t moved -- it’s in the same spot it’s been for the last 100 years.” Blessedly, after about an hour, the power company paid a visit and the lights blazed back on.

For a while we talked about pool cues and specifically low deflection shafts, how he’d been sent some to try, “They all have some deflection, so you’re always going to have to compensate. So it doesn’t matter.”

I asked him about how he aimed “Just see the shot,” he said. “No ghost ball, no contact points, no tracks, aiming systems, no edges?!” I asked. “No. All that aiming system stuff -- people want a magic pill. They don’t want to work. Those are all gimmicks, something to sell,” Ray told me.

We talked about the state of pool instruction nowadays and many of the game’s writers “Some of these guys don’t know what they’re talking about. If you want to play like a champion, take a lesson from a champion,” he said. And he told me how he’d recently been approached to do an instructional DVD that he might actually do.

I have to say that Ray’s philosophy on running balls at straight pool is markedly different from that espoused by Dallas West. And adjusting to this new approach was, and still is, difficult for me. But after he explained it, it made a great deal of sense to me and I have been working diligently to incorporate it into my game the last few weeks.

At one point the only shot I had left myself was a combination with the second object ball some distance from the first and from the pocket. I think Ray could see me hesitate and finally he asked, "So. How are you on combinations?” And I responded, “Pretty miserable.” And he offered, “Would you like a clue?” And I said (wait for it), “Yes. Please.” And he showed me a little trick for aiming combinations that has turned me into a combination playing monster compared to the 10-1 dog I was previously.

The second element that struck me was how he repeatedly stressed minimizing cue ball travel. Over and over again, I’d be happy to send the cue ball to different shots hither and yon and he’d stop me and say, “Why are you going over there? You have another shot closer by.” The theory being that a player would be far more accurate with their positional play at close range rather than going cross table. Of course he was right, but at least for me, it was surprisingly difficult to put into practice. “Just connect the dots -- don’t be sending the cue ball too far,” Ray reminded me.

The final thing that stuck with me is was how long he’d have me leave certain balls on the table. “You can get those later,” he said.

At another point I had a difficult positional play that I was unsure of and he told me how to hit it and I was a little dubious but I shot it as he directed and pulled it off, the cue ball magically traversing between obstacles as he said it would and it dawned on me, “That shot is in your book, isn’t it?” And he just nodded. It was a shot I had certainly forgotten and never played until that day and am now shooting all the time.

By the end my head was spinning a bit and I still could not, on my own, go to the shot he expected me to. And I explained, ”This is quite the paradigm shift and it’s going to take me going back home and forcing myself to use it. I can see your logic and it makes sense -- I just have to get my mind right.”

“You always have to keep changing the plan. Anyone that tells you that they can put the ball on a dime is lying. You do the best you can and then come up with a different plan depending on what you get,” he said.

And then he really shocked me. “So what about Pre Shot Routines?” I asked. “Don’t have one,” he replied.

At times we’d stop and talk about players: Willie Mosconi, Ralph Greenleaf, Mike Sigel, Jim Rempe, Dallas West, Luther Lassiter, Joe Balsis, Irving Crane, Cicero Murphy, Steve Mizerak, Pete Margo, and on and on. It was wonderful to hear him share his candid thoughts about the different strengths and weaknesses of so many players and his personal recollections, in many cases, of competing against them, including one hilarious story about a partners game between him and Nick Varner vs Dallas West and Jim Rempe.

I pulled out my copy of “The 99 Critical Shots in Pool” to ask for him to autograph it and he remarked, “A hardcover. That’s got to be a collector's item.” And I told him it was probably a first edition and he graciously signed and dated it. He also posed for a photo.

So that’s it. I drove back out towards Tampa to meet up with my wife, my head over flowing with new ideas and I gotta tell you: I’m consistently running more balls now. I’m using the behind the rack break more often; I’m implementing his approach to taking the balls off the table; I’m still learning to reduce the movement of my cue ball; and I’m leaving balls that I would have shot earlier on the table longer. As we were finishing up Ray asked me, “So, do you just like taking lessons?” And I responded, “ I've only taken a few. But, you know, sometimes, when you’re watching great players at a tournament, or on a DVD, you’ll think to yourself or the commentators will ask, ‘Why’d he go that way?’ And now I know. Ray, I’m one of the few people that know why you went one way instead of another.”

If you ever get the chance, you need to go see Ray for a lesson. If you want to play like a champion, take a lesson from a champion.

Lou Figueroa

One of the best posts I have read in awhile. You should write a book. Correction. You should have already written a book.

Tell me where to send the check when the book comes out, and I will happily mail it off.

kollegedave

 

[lfigueroa]

One of the best posts I have read in awhile. You should write a book. Correction. You should have already written a book.

Tell me where to send the check when the book comes out, and I will happily mail it off.

kollegedave

Thank you, David -- means a lot.

Somehow, late in life, I pictured myself on an island, ala Ian Fleming on Jamaica at GoldenEye, compiling and writing something. We'll see.

Lou Figueroa

 

[Ralph]

Thank you, David -- means a lot.

Somehow, late in life, I pictured myself on an island, ala Ian Fleming on Jamaica at GoldenEye, compiling and writing something. We'll see.
R
Lou Figueroa

hi just gotta say this about Ray the very first league match I played in when I moved to largo fl area the opponents team consisted of
Ray Pat Howie Sammy the fisherman and his wife Beth. All i could say is that Really Ray Martin. Got to BS with him a lot and a really nice guy

 

[dquarasr]

Yes — the spot on the rail becomes your pocket.

Lou Figueroa

Wow, great thread. I am just now discovering it since it was resurrected.

Sort of cosmic in that just the other day I started to post but ultimately deleted it as too trivial. But this post encourages me to post about it now.

I absolutely suck at combos. I was going to ask about how people perceive targets that are NOT pockets. I have this trouble when playing safeties, or when trying to aim a object ball at a billiard point (such as to push a ball off the rail when it is right near the side pocket, using my OB to touch the ball on the way in). Why is this a problem for me? I think it's because I have taught myself not to look at the pocket. I simply know where it is, get down, visualize the contact point (modified ghost ball, but these days I don't actually conjure a ghost ball; I just know where it seems right to line up the CB and the OB), and shoot it. I rarely if ever look at the pocket. Even if I need to cheat the pocket, I typically don't look at it.

Any suggestions on how to overcome this so I can visualize aiming at a spot (on the rail or across the room) for the first ball in a combo? Hopefully there's something besides "practice, practice, practice", which I suspect is the real answer. I am also curious to know if I am unique in that I almost never look at the pocket; I just know where it is without looking. Sorry for what might be a thread jack.

 

[kollegedave]

Thank you, David -- means a lot.

Somehow, late in life, I pictured myself on an island, ala Ian Fleming on Jamaica at GoldenEye, compiling and writing something. We'll see.

Lou Figueroa

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Seems like a good place for you and Gail to spend some time.

kollegedave

 

[lfigueroa]

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Seems like a good place for you and Gail to spend some time.

kollegedave

lol, that's great!

I wonder what my odds are of getting to pound out a few stories on one of Fleming's typewriters, given that I can still recall how to type on one of those.

(insert flashback music)

I went to St. Ignatius College Preparatory in the City by the Bay -- San Francisco, California. It was and probably still is the "elite" school in the city and everyone from the mayor's kid to the progeny of all the city's movers and shakers attended. It was operated by the Jesuit order and they ran a pretty tight ship. Except, one of the things they always pushed was excellence in athletics. And to this end they always seemed to bring in "outside help" to run their teams. This "help" might have been a bit rough around the edges and outside the Jesuit's generally genteel approach to schooling but our football and basketball teams were perennial winners at various levels of competition.

Our football coach was one Vince Tringali.

Coach Tringali was a cross between Vince Lombardi and General George S. Patton and looked and sounded like a dark curly-haired George C. Scott in "The Hustler." How he ended up at St. Ignatius I have to idea because while he was, no doubt, a highly intelligent man, he was not a man of how shall I say this... great finesse.

As I recall, Coach Tringali was required to assume some academic responsibilities in addition to his coaching duties. Somehow, the cerebral Jesuit faculty decided that Coach Tringali was ideally suited to teach exactly two classes: American History and Freshman Typing. That's right: Freshman Typing. We were all required to take a typing class because, of course, we were expected to hand in all our written work neatly typed. (Our math assignments were on blue graph paper but that's another story.) And so, the very first day of school, sooner or later, every member of the freshman class ended up in a room populated with several neat rows of wooden desks upon which there sat an equal number of manual typewriters.

Now Coach Tringali was no-nonsense kinda guy and even though we'd all been in the institution for less than 24 hours, we had all already heard enough about him to be scared sheetless. The story circulating that afternoon was that Coach Tringali had taken one student in the morning edition of American History (who had incurred some minor infraction or other -- maybe chewing gum) and pushed him to the floor, picked him up by his ankles and held him out of a third floor window until the scofflaw had promised -- in earnest enough tones -- that he would not be a recalcitrant.

It was the final typing class of the day during a particularly cold September in San Francisco. We were all seated behind typewriters, chattering away, when Coach Tringali made his entrance. We immediately fell silent.

Coach Tingali peered at us over the top of his black framed glasses and curtly said, "Put a piece of paper into your typewriter and bang away. Knock yourselves out. But when I tell you to stop. You're gonna stop."

Well, this was easy enough instruction to follow and so we all began to merrily bang away at the keys of our instruments, listening to the clacking, the little bicycle-like bell go "ting" when we reached the far end of the paper, and then the nice ratcheting sound of the return lever in action. Some of the more creative students actually typed out some bawdy limericks or pounded out a reasonable likeness of the theme from "The Lone Ranger." And then, after about two minutes of typewriter mayhem we heard from the front of the class one softly spoken word: "Stop."

Like a hail storm coming to an abrupt end, the room turned to total quiet as we awaited further instruction from Coach Tringali. And then, from the back row, like a perfectly hit note on an idiophone, came one, lone, solitary sound:

"Ting."

Coach Tringali just sort of cocked his head to one side as if he had heard the call of an incredibly rare bird. It was as if he could not believe his ears. Slowly he walked to the back of the class and I thought the poor kid who had set off the typewriter was just going to either pass out cold or wet himself, or maybe both. The whole class had turned in their seats to silently watch the drama unfold.

The school building at the time was several decades old and it used those big cast iron steam radiators to heat the rooms. As Coach Tringali leaned over the poor guy in the last row he took the kid's hand and held it over one of the nearby radiators and slowly lowered it. There was not a man in the room who did not fully believe that Coach Tringali was capable of carrying out his justice and that it would be just a matter of moments before we all heard a scream of agony and smelled the odor of burning human flesh.

But, for reasons unknown to us, Coach Tringali stopped with the perp's hand mere inches from the coal-hot radiator. Maybe he was actually worried about causing serious damage to the kid, or maybe it was just the end of a long day and he was tired, or maybe, he just realized that sometimes you don't have to actually burn someone’s hand to make your point.

Lou Figueroa

 

[stevelomako]

I didn’t go to a Catholic school but most of the kids in my neighborhood did and since I got out before them I would go there often and wait for them.

The Nuns knew me as well if not better than all my buddies that went there.

And I knew their ruler very well.

I never did anything that bad but they didn’t mess around. They are fond memories. The school was only two stories but the Head Nuns office seemed like it was up 10 floors when I had to walk up to it at times. It seemed like such a loooong walk too.