Remembering Grady Mathews
- Thread starter JAM
- Start date
Early 90's
Here's one of my favorites, away from the pool room and the pool balls, and just kickin' it with these two in Germany. :thumbup:
Tell CJ I'm sorry the pic is SO BIG :thumbup:
Here's one of my favorites, away from the pool room and the pool balls, and just kickin' it with these two in Germany. :thumbup:
Tell CJ I'm sorry the pic is SO BIG :thumbup:
It is so good to see others remember the Grady I know. He is certainly one of the great American pool legends. He kept giving it all to pool, right up until he passed.
JAM...Wow! All I can say is hats off to Cali Red and Jim Mullens. :thumbup: A very fitting tribute to Grady (my friend for more than 40 years). It even moved my wife Patti to tears...she said that was a beautiful tribute to anyone, and didn't know Grady from Adam! Very nice find! Thanks for sharing.
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
1972-73
When I moved to Colorado Springs, it couldn't of been a year or so later, Grady opened his pool room at the corner of old business Hwy 24 and Union. It all started there for I once I left IL and Carbondale. There was this guy who drove I think at the time a red Cadillac, convertible with a white top. His wife had RED hair, and heard she still may be up and around in Ada OK. He sure liked to play SOMETHING when he wasn't playin'. Dominos, spades, hearts, gin You name it, then years later the crap table. He was always thinking about the angles trying to get the bet going and workin' ya as you spent your time there all the time. His wife ran a titty bar down the street, and she would ''get in your face'' if things weren't going her way (she backed Grady) and it was forty years ago, Bob Osborn came by with the first Red Circle cue ball I've ever seen, 72 or so. Surfer Rod, they all had to pass thru CO back then, because Grady Was Action, gas was cheap, rooms were plentiful in the winter, and we broke many a roadie who would then live and move here eventually. They seemingly all passed thru at least once. There was tons of action, every night and the military were hanging out in the titty bars if ya wanted to go that route. An interesting piece of trivia. Diane, widow of Wade Crane grew up a block from where my homes at, and her family built/owned a pool room just behind my house a block over, she still owns the building with her brother.
When I moved to Colorado Springs, it couldn't of been a year or so later, Grady opened his pool room at the corner of old business Hwy 24 and Union. It all started there for I once I left IL and Carbondale. There was this guy who drove I think at the time a red Cadillac, convertible with a white top. His wife had RED hair, and heard she still may be up and around in Ada OK. He sure liked to play SOMETHING when he wasn't playin'. Dominos, spades, hearts, gin You name it, then years later the crap table. He was always thinking about the angles trying to get the bet going and workin' ya as you spent your time there all the time. His wife ran a titty bar down the street, and she would ''get in your face'' if things weren't going her way (she backed Grady) and it was forty years ago, Bob Osborn came by with the first Red Circle cue ball I've ever seen, 72 or so. Surfer Rod, they all had to pass thru CO back then, because Grady Was Action, gas was cheap, rooms were plentiful in the winter, and we broke many a roadie who would then live and move here eventually. They seemingly all passed thru at least once. There was tons of action, every night and the military were hanging out in the titty bars if ya wanted to go that route. An interesting piece of trivia. Diane, widow of Wade Crane grew up a block from where my homes at, and her family built/owned a pool room just behind my house a block over, she still owns the building with her brother.
I'd just like to give a shout out to another of Grady's close friends...Rick Lowell, aka Pelican here on AzB. Rick went out of his way to drive from S AL to pick Grady up in Lexington SC and take him to the DCC to attend his very last OP HOF dinner in January 2012. Grady was very ill and couldn't make the trip without help. Rick took him there and back home again. Rick is another great supporter of the game, and someone I'm proud to call my friend! :thumbup:
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
Nice pix. Thanks for sharing.
We'll all remember Grady as a great player and developer and presenter of events.
Every year at Derby City, there's a ring game and it was Grady who made the ring game a fixture at the Derby City Classic. It's now one of the highlights.
We'll all remember Grady as a great player and developer and presenter of events.
Every year at Derby City, there's a ring game and it was Grady who made the ring game a fixture at the Derby City Classic. It's now one of the highlights.
Thanks for the memories
I didn't know Grady personally, but just seeing him with all those old time great players is nostalgic; he fits right in there with them and is part of an era gone by; Thanks to you, Miss JAM, for remembering him this way, because a person still lives as long as we remember that person. The tributes and interviews are very nice as well. I want to mention a couple things I remember about him too.
My all time favorite (Accu-Stats video) commentating session was when Billy Incardona told a story of how Grady beat Buddy Hall in a 9-ball match (tournament) 11-0, and was so pleased with himself that he proclaimed that he was the best 9-ball player in the world at that moment; and then Billy said (laughingly), he then proceeded to lose his next two matches. Grady was obviously embarrassed to have Billy relate that story, and said he didn't want him telling it, but it was so hilarious the way Billy teased him about it, I thought it was priceless. (If anyone can tell me which Accu-Stats video this was on, please let me know; I have so many videos, I don't know which match this commentary was on. Thank you)
The best I ever saw Grady play was when he won a TV match in 9-ball(again tournament) where he just dominated the table running racks against Nick Varner.
I only saw him come around the SF Bay Area once, looking to gamble, and that was way late in his pool playing career, but I could tell he would not back down from playing and gambling with anybody.
Again, thanks for the memories.
I didn't know Grady personally, but just seeing him with all those old time great players is nostalgic; he fits right in there with them and is part of an era gone by; Thanks to you, Miss JAM, for remembering him this way, because a person still lives as long as we remember that person. The tributes and interviews are very nice as well. I want to mention a couple things I remember about him too.
My all time favorite (Accu-Stats video) commentating session was when Billy Incardona told a story of how Grady beat Buddy Hall in a 9-ball match (tournament) 11-0, and was so pleased with himself that he proclaimed that he was the best 9-ball player in the world at that moment; and then Billy said (laughingly), he then proceeded to lose his next two matches. Grady was obviously embarrassed to have Billy relate that story, and said he didn't want him telling it, but it was so hilarious the way Billy teased him about it, I thought it was priceless. (If anyone can tell me which Accu-Stats video this was on, please let me know; I have so many videos, I don't know which match this commentary was on. Thank you)
The best I ever saw Grady play was when he won a TV match in 9-ball(again tournament) where he just dominated the table running racks against Nick Varner.
I only saw him come around the SF Bay Area once, looking to gamble, and that was way late in his pool playing career, but I could tell he would not back down from playing and gambling with anybody.
Again, thanks for the memories.
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Jam. thanks for sharing some of your memories of Grady. He was a great man besides a top player. Always cordial to the fans and once you spoke to him it just seemed like you knew him forever.
That is exactly how it was the one time I met him. I said hi to him at a tournament and he would greet me and have a chat every time he ran into me that day, it was like we were friends for 10 years. He was a wonderful person.
I spent a grand total of a month around Grady,the entire week of the '95 U.S. Open,and a 2 week session around North and South Carolina. Beyond that,we hung together at a couple of weekend tournaments after that.
For someone I only spent a total of a month around,I don't think we could have been any closer.
At times,he treated me like a son. Other times,he treated me as an EQUAL.
But for a man that obviously had seen it all in the pool world and had considerable standing,he never once treated me as if I wasn't important to him.
He was a man's man. Tommy D.
For someone I only spent a total of a month around,I don't think we could have been any closer.
At times,he treated me like a son. Other times,he treated me as an EQUAL.
But for a man that obviously had seen it all in the pool world and had considerable standing,he never once treated me as if I wasn't important to him.
He was a man's man. Tommy D.
I always liked Grady. I knew him from the 80's and early 90's when I repaired cues at all the pro events in Atlanta. Well when Grady was opening his last pool room in SC he wanted to buy a lathe from me to repair cues with. When he showed up to pick it up he had just come from the Diamond factory where he was getting his tables from. He told me they had a Porper lathe there that they offered to throw in with his tables and finance it without him having any immediate out of pocket expense. He said that he was tempted to do it, but that he had given me his word he was buying my lathe and was a man of his word.
Grady was an honest outspoken man whom I have always appreciated. He once said the top players of today are better than the top players of his day. That is something I have only heard him admit. That showed a lot of truthfulness and humility that is rare among world class players. He was also quick to point out when people had legends built up to be better than they really were.
He was a master of one pocket and yet his straight pool game was good enough that even in the early 90's way past his prime, he would come to a pool room for a demonstration show and guarantee he would run a 100 balls. He came to the old Side Pockets in Marietta, GA and they had widened their pockets to a funny angle that would not allow a ball to be run up the rail. It would hang everytime. Well he managed over a 50 ball run on those tables and they paid him anyway as they felt their tables were all that stopped him.
I never heard any pro players say a bad thing about Grady during any of those tournaments in the 80's and 90's that I worked back then. And I never saw any of them ask him to play one pocket. So that says a lot to me about his true speed at one pocket.
Grady was an honest outspoken man whom I have always appreciated. He once said the top players of today are better than the top players of his day. That is something I have only heard him admit. That showed a lot of truthfulness and humility that is rare among world class players. He was also quick to point out when people had legends built up to be better than they really were.
He was a master of one pocket and yet his straight pool game was good enough that even in the early 90's way past his prime, he would come to a pool room for a demonstration show and guarantee he would run a 100 balls. He came to the old Side Pockets in Marietta, GA and they had widened their pockets to a funny angle that would not allow a ball to be run up the rail. It would hang everytime. Well he managed over a 50 ball run on those tables and they paid him anyway as they felt their tables were all that stopped him.
I never heard any pro players say a bad thing about Grady during any of those tournaments in the 80's and 90's that I worked back then. And I never saw any of them ask him to play one pocket. So that says a lot to me about his true speed at one pocket.
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Here's a cute shot of Grady wiuth Keith and Tony Mougey at the 2003 U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship.
It was no secret that Grady had a strong disdain for substance abuse, to include alcohol and cigarettes. Grady did not smoke or drink or do drugs. He was a "straight arrow," I guess you could say. It's kind of comical to see Grady holding his coffee cup on the right and Keith holding his brown bottle and cigarette on the left. Quite the contrast.
His only vice was, well, gambling, and he sure was fun to watch when he was in action.
Grady absolutely smoked like a smoke stack Here is a pic from 93 playing Pat Fleming lightning up a smoke while Pat racked
Attachments
I never saw Grady smoke cigarettes in recent years. Though I did first meet him in the early '80s at Tampa, FL in Baker's pool room,
he must have smoked then, but I just didn't notice it since I smoked, as well.
Several people on another forum have already posted that Grady did, indeed, smoke heavily. In the years I knew Grady well, he did *not* smoke cigarettes.
I always wondered if Randi's smoking bothered him, but if it did, he never let on that it did. Now that I don't smoke, smoke bothers me.
I kind of wanted this thread to be more about a celebration of Grady's life, much more so than about how much he smoked, but as is life on this forum,
every thread ends up in a debate about something. I guess it is inevitable. :embarrassed2:
he must have smoked then, but I just didn't notice it since I smoked, as well.
Several people on another forum have already posted that Grady did, indeed, smoke heavily. In the years I knew Grady well, he did *not* smoke cigarettes.
I always wondered if Randi's smoking bothered him, but if it did, he never let on that it did. Now that I don't smoke, smoke bothers me.
I kind of wanted this thread to be more about a celebration of Grady's life, much more so than about how much he smoked, but as is life on this forum,
every thread ends up in a debate about something. I guess it is inevitable. :embarrassed2:
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