Part 2
In the old days there was very little money to be won at sanctioned tournaments. A guy like Willie Mosconi could beat the world and barely make enough to cover his expenses. Now the television people had plenty of money to throw at the top players in head-to-head matchups. It made for great television, but the players were forced to show their best competitive game instead of trying to hide their true talent in order to bait suckers.
I decided not to play this game. First of all, my strength was in the old Chicago-style hustler games like One Pocket and eight ball, giving and taking spots, conning suckers. I had never been among the masters at straight pool or Nine Ball, and these were the kinds of games the TV people wanted to feature. Secondly, as I was getting older, I could tell that my interest was beginning to fade away just a bit. This is true in all sports. When you are young you have more stamina, stronger nerves, better eyesight and so forth. You can beat Father Time for only so long. I could still play well enough, but I knew that my future lay in some other business. From the days when I was a kid on the North Side of Chicago, I had always enjoyed sports playing games sports myself and
watching the Pros in action. Organized sports had not been a big part of my childhood in Austria after the War. For one thing, people who are poor and hungry after years of war have very little time for leisure activities like sports. We had no money for uniforms, balls, shoes and the other equipment, which is necessary to play even a sport like Soccer. Nowadays Europe is crazy for sport, but in those days, it was a luxury. When I came to the United States, I quickly noticed that sports were very popular. The schools sponsored football, basketball, baseball and other teams. This was unheard of in Europe.
And then the radio, the newspapers and later television were full of sports. Chicagoans seemed to have plenty of money and free time to attend Cubs and White Sox baseball games, Bears football games, Blackhawk hockey games. College football was a big deal people would go down to South Bend on the train to watch Notre Dame Football games. The Chicago Stadium would be packed for college basketball doubleheaders and later on the Stadium would rock for Bobby Hull and the Blackhawks, for Michael Jordan and the Bulls.
Chicago was always a red-hot sports town. People in bars and restaurants argued passionately about their favorite teams. Bookmakers would hang around the pool halls booking bets on the big boxing matches that were held at Chicago Stadium and in the ballparks. There were also several racetracks around the city Washington Park, Arlington Park, Hawthorne, and Maywood. In summertime the grandstands would be packed for the big stake's races.
I started belting on sports before I started playing pool because you had to be 18 years old to play in pool rooms. Wrigley Field, where the Cubs and Bears played, was my classroom in learning to bet sports. They Carnivals was my Harvard and Yale education. And I was number one. I learned all the tricks and gaffs you needed to know how to win at anything you gamble at. I'd first become familiar with the neighborhood around Clark and Addison when I shined the shoes of fans coming in and out of the ballpark. Occasionally people would give me tickets and I'd go inside to watch the action.
Everything about Wrigley Field excited me. The emerald, green grass, the ivy-covered red brick walls, the roar of the crowd on a hot summer day the place fascinated me, and I was always happy to spend a few hours there. The way my mind worked, though, I was never content to sit around drinking beer in the sun. I wanted to learn the ins and outs of the games and how to bet them for a profit. There was no better place to do that than the right field bleachers at Wrigley, because I soon discovered a group of regular bettors who hung out there every day. Many of them were old timers who knew the game of baseball inside out. You could sit next to them for hours they were professors of baseball, and their lectures were well worth listening to.
They loved to bet on anything that happened during the game. Of course, they would bet on which team would win or lose they had the bookie's odds on that well before game time. They would also bet over/under on the final score, which at Wrigley Field could depend a lot on the wind blowing out of the prairies or in off Lake Michigan. You had to be a weatherman as well as knowledgeable about pitchers and hitters. They would also make all kinds of proposition bets, many of them invented on the spur of the moment. Would the next batter make out or get a hit? If he made out, would it be by a fly ball, ground ball or strike out? Was he more likely to strike out or walk? How many total runs, hits and errors would there be in the game? Would there be a score in the next inning? Which team would hit the most home runs in the game? The possibilities for betting were endless and depended only on how agile your mind was in coming up with proposition wagers that might give you an edge.
It was a battle of wits among what seemed like two groups of bettors. One group knew what they were doing and how to bet smart. The other group were guys who just craved action, who needed to make bets any kind of bets in order to keep themselves in a state of excitement. In other words, there were a group of winners and a group of losers. It didn't take me long to decide which group I wanted to belong to.
To be continued:
In the old days there was very little money to be won at sanctioned tournaments. A guy like Willie Mosconi could beat the world and barely make enough to cover his expenses. Now the television people had plenty of money to throw at the top players in head-to-head matchups. It made for great television, but the players were forced to show their best competitive game instead of trying to hide their true talent in order to bait suckers.
I decided not to play this game. First of all, my strength was in the old Chicago-style hustler games like One Pocket and eight ball, giving and taking spots, conning suckers. I had never been among the masters at straight pool or Nine Ball, and these were the kinds of games the TV people wanted to feature. Secondly, as I was getting older, I could tell that my interest was beginning to fade away just a bit. This is true in all sports. When you are young you have more stamina, stronger nerves, better eyesight and so forth. You can beat Father Time for only so long. I could still play well enough, but I knew that my future lay in some other business. From the days when I was a kid on the North Side of Chicago, I had always enjoyed sports playing games sports myself and
watching the Pros in action. Organized sports had not been a big part of my childhood in Austria after the War. For one thing, people who are poor and hungry after years of war have very little time for leisure activities like sports. We had no money for uniforms, balls, shoes and the other equipment, which is necessary to play even a sport like Soccer. Nowadays Europe is crazy for sport, but in those days, it was a luxury. When I came to the United States, I quickly noticed that sports were very popular. The schools sponsored football, basketball, baseball and other teams. This was unheard of in Europe.
And then the radio, the newspapers and later television were full of sports. Chicagoans seemed to have plenty of money and free time to attend Cubs and White Sox baseball games, Bears football games, Blackhawk hockey games. College football was a big deal people would go down to South Bend on the train to watch Notre Dame Football games. The Chicago Stadium would be packed for college basketball doubleheaders and later on the Stadium would rock for Bobby Hull and the Blackhawks, for Michael Jordan and the Bulls.
Chicago was always a red-hot sports town. People in bars and restaurants argued passionately about their favorite teams. Bookmakers would hang around the pool halls booking bets on the big boxing matches that were held at Chicago Stadium and in the ballparks. There were also several racetracks around the city Washington Park, Arlington Park, Hawthorne, and Maywood. In summertime the grandstands would be packed for the big stake's races.
I started belting on sports before I started playing pool because you had to be 18 years old to play in pool rooms. Wrigley Field, where the Cubs and Bears played, was my classroom in learning to bet sports. They Carnivals was my Harvard and Yale education. And I was number one. I learned all the tricks and gaffs you needed to know how to win at anything you gamble at. I'd first become familiar with the neighborhood around Clark and Addison when I shined the shoes of fans coming in and out of the ballpark. Occasionally people would give me tickets and I'd go inside to watch the action.
Everything about Wrigley Field excited me. The emerald, green grass, the ivy-covered red brick walls, the roar of the crowd on a hot summer day the place fascinated me, and I was always happy to spend a few hours there. The way my mind worked, though, I was never content to sit around drinking beer in the sun. I wanted to learn the ins and outs of the games and how to bet them for a profit. There was no better place to do that than the right field bleachers at Wrigley, because I soon discovered a group of regular bettors who hung out there every day. Many of them were old timers who knew the game of baseball inside out. You could sit next to them for hours they were professors of baseball, and their lectures were well worth listening to.
They loved to bet on anything that happened during the game. Of course, they would bet on which team would win or lose they had the bookie's odds on that well before game time. They would also bet over/under on the final score, which at Wrigley Field could depend a lot on the wind blowing out of the prairies or in off Lake Michigan. You had to be a weatherman as well as knowledgeable about pitchers and hitters. They would also make all kinds of proposition bets, many of them invented on the spur of the moment. Would the next batter make out or get a hit? If he made out, would it be by a fly ball, ground ball or strike out? Was he more likely to strike out or walk? How many total runs, hits and errors would there be in the game? Would there be a score in the next inning? Which team would hit the most home runs in the game? The possibilities for betting were endless and depended only on how agile your mind was in coming up with proposition wagers that might give you an edge.
It was a battle of wits among what seemed like two groups of bettors. One group knew what they were doing and how to bet smart. The other group were guys who just craved action, who needed to make bets any kind of bets in order to keep themselves in a state of excitement. In other words, there were a group of winners and a group of losers. It didn't take me long to decide which group I wanted to belong to.
To be continued:
